


An Unhelpful Guide to Experiencing Love (with Choi Yeonjun)

by willowgyu



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Christmas Eve, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Soobin is tired, author doesnt hate winter (i swear), cheesy shit, classic beomjun soulmatism, feelings: h yeonjun: idk what this/ is where this is from/ what this is made of, hueningkai is the hidden mvp, literally no angst because life has been enough angst hh, luckily beomgyu does too, mentions of tyunningsoob, this is sign that idk what to tag ok leave me alone i am not kang taehyun, yeonjun just wants to kiss tbh, yeonjun youre not the kdrama male lead you think you are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowgyu/pseuds/willowgyu
Summary: It's so normal for him to do this: to notice things about Beomgyu that the younger doesn't so that he can take care of him, and perhaps he is overthinking it too. But for the first time in a while, he stops midway when he realises what he is doing.Once again, the same question flashes before him. What is love?(or, yeonjun finds out what it means to be in love after finally admitting his feelings for his best friend.)
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 19
Kudos: 90





	An Unhelpful Guide to Experiencing Love (with Choi Yeonjun)

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off with thanking one of my soulmates for helping with this by lifting me to my feet everytime I fell face-first and didn't know if I should continue; and for reading this and assuring me that it's ok, that I'm more worried than I should be. Also thanks to my twitter bestie (you know who you are) for encouraging me everytime I cried to you about this mess. 
> 
> Mess this is, indeed. This whole year has been a mess. Midway through I forgot myself and everything and everyone I loved, sunk to the bottom and hated myself so much for my incompetence. But November has been kind to me, reminded me that bad things might seem endless but they always pass. It hasn't passed yet, the shadows still haunt my heart, but I'm glad I could do this.  
> This poetic attempt at bullshiting is my reminder to myself that love exists because I have forgotten what it is like. I had started to think perhaps love is not something for me after all. So my stupid little self started carving a piece that would remind me of what love is, how beautiful it is and how much I want to desperately be able to give and receive it. Haha I projected into both Yeonjun and Beomgyu a lot lol. Also god this is so cheesy I want to die.
> 
> It's probably not a good read, but I've written this so now everyone has to perceive it. Hope you can find something enjoyable amidst this trainwreck. To everyone who is struggling to recall what it feels like to love and be loved— I hope you find it, I hope you find what or who reminds you of it soon. I hope I do too.  
> Happy Holidays!
> 
> ps. this is terribly unedited and all mistakes are mine.

_When Yeonjun had run inside Beomgyu's shed to hide, back in March, he did not think he would find the things that he did. Later, much later, Soobin will tell him it was kind of invasive of him to do what he did and Yeonjun will agree. But by then it won't matter anymore and that day will forever be lodged in his journal with a tiny little '1' against its date._

Sunlight falls golden over the ground through the glass of the small roof window, lighting up the gray of the room. There are brown cardboard boxes piled over one another or lying in their own accord on the tiles forming library-like aisles by his feet. It still smells of fresh paint, Yeonjun breathes it in again— _it's fresh paint mingled with old books._

He's not here by choice, no. He had passionately protested against Kai's idea of playing hide-and-seek as a way of 'checking out' Beomgyu's brand new vacation house. But since the other team was heavier in number (Beomgyu that traitor), he had to agree with such a terribly childish idea of entertainment. 

("I did not fly all the way to Jeju for playing a game of hide-and-seek with a group of teenagers," he had grumbled under his breath. 

"Right we should be considerate of the elderly— Hyung is at his greying age," Soobin said because he never passes a chance to push his own luck. 

Yeonjun had raised his fist to threaten Soobin with a punch. "Don't forget I can take away your mattress privileges again if you get too brave— you're practically living in my mercy."

"Wow, what a cruel roommate. Look at him always threatening me with the same thing," Soobin had whined.)

Despite his dislike of the idea, he would be damned if he lost. So the moment Soobin (very dejected on losing in the rock-paper-scissors game _twice)_ faced the wall in the living room to begin his counting, Yeonjun had made a run for the huge lawn hoping for a storage room or a shed. He felt extreme glee on finding just that (albeit after a long run till the far end of his backyard).

But oh, he realizes now, he has found much more than just that. 

_Perhaps the game wasn't a bad idea, after all,_ Yeonjun thinks, as his fingers gaze over boxes filled with Beomgyu's things from when he was younger. They are all books— the whole place seems to be filled with his old books. Yeonjun walks around with a growing smile when he realizes it has all of them— starting right from alphabet books and nursery rhymes till the big mathematics books that Beomgyu was so happy to abandon after highschool; all stacked into a place like a lifetime worth of memories. 

_It's like a little Beomgyu Museum_ , Yeonjun muses, and it's true. This place is filled with things that have accompanied the younger at some point in his life.

He walks around, stopping at certain places where he catches the sight of covers of books that he recognizes or ones that make him curious. He finds it too adorable that Mrs. Choi decided to turn the shed into a library for all the books Beomgyu has ever owned. 

Something catches his eye— a different box that, instead of books, seems to have stacks of colourful papers in them. Yeonjun puts down the copy of Snowwhite and the Seven Dwarfs in his hand (it's one of the books he remembers Beomgyu used to carry around with him everywhere) and walks towards his new item of interest. 

When he looks down at this box he finds it filled with little drawings and pieces of Beomgyu's clumsy handwriting days and his mouth falls open in an amused gasp. "His mother also kept things like these?" He whispers into space as he picks up a few of them.

In a fit of mischief, he thinks he can dig up something he made and embarrass Beomgyu with it. That's why he starts to look through everything in the box. 

Each piece of paper he comes across makes his smile grow wider. He can't hold the fondness he feels when he sees all the masterpieces that little Beomgyu's tiny fingers had conjured a long time ago. There are scrawls of stick men, a few portraits of a woman with _'Eomma, by Beomgyu'_ written below in his unusually neat handwriting. There are also some titled _'my family_ _♡_ _'_ that have four people drawn on them ( _Appa, Eomma, Hyung and Kkyu)_. The cutest thing he finds is this little warning note that Beomgyu might have made when he had caught the swine flu— it has illustrations with instructions and everything, _it's adorable_. Although a little disappointed at not finding his own portrait amidst Beomgyu's collection, Yeonjun giggles at the sheer cuteness of everything. He can't believe he found himself a Tiny Beomgyu Memory Box and feels a fuzzy feeling in his chest while thumbing over every little thing inside it.

At one side of the box, there are a number of envelopes, he pulls them out. They look like cards Beomgyu made for his parents on various occasions. Quite a number of them have _'Happy Father's Day'_ or _'Happy Mother's Day'_ on them. Then he finds this one envelope. It's different. This one is a faded red with little green Christmas tree prints all over it. Clearly for a Christmas-themed occasion.

_'To Santa Halabuji'_ it says on top. Yeonjun's fond laugh bounces off the walls. He can't control his urge to open it.

Inside there is a card with Beomgyu's drawing of Santa and a little boy in a yellow shirt and green pants— it's Beomgyu. Yeonjun's lips light up some more and then he flips it open to read it. 

_"Dear Santa Halabuji,_

_This is Beomgyu again with this year's wish. Last year I asked for a pet dog and you did give it to me a little late… although we had to give him away because we couldn't take care of him. :(_

_But that's okay! This year, I want something else! It's not any toy or animal, I just need a little help with something. There is this boy that I like. He has pretty eyes and he always holds my hand when I miss Mom at the daycare. His name is Choi Yeonjun hyung! I think I really like him but I don't know if he likes me too. This year I wish you ask Yeonjun hyung to like me back because I am too scared to ask. I hope you help me!_

_Thanks for working so hard, Halabuji. Fighting!!!_

_Please travel safely too. :)_

_— Beomgyu."_

Yeonjun momentarily finds himself frozen on his ground at the new information he has found. His breath gets caught in his throat as he begins to process it. The pounding of his heart echoes in his ears. And then he breaks into a smile. 

This is definitely something he can embarrass Beomgyu with, he thinks, as he quickly puts the card back inside the envelope and pockets it. He can't keep the silly grin on his face from blooming at the thought that little Beomgyu used to have a crush on him and even wrote such a cute letter to 'Santa Halabuji' to ask him to like him back. He pictures Beomgyu from his own first memories of him (slightly more of a troublemaker and crybaby than he is now), writing a letter to Santa with his tiny hands. The thought already makes his chest rumble. This new knowledge is making him more giddy than it should. 

He has every intention of bringing it up later. 

★★★

_But he simply couldn't make himself do it._

Soobin, turns out, is good at this game. He found Yeonjun's hiding place relatively easily and had already found Hueningkai even before that. Taehyun, who was sitting quietly behind the couch in the living room, was next.

Beomgyu, of course the owner of the house, was the hardest one to find. After getting utterly exhausted Soobin had decided to take a look at every place that could possibly fit a Choi Beomgyu and found him, at last, curled inside the darkness of the kitchen cabinet, giggling uncontrollably.

That was how the most overrated game in the world came to an end and it was finally Yeonjun's turn to enjoy something. He had enthusiastically picked up the phone to order food, giving no mind to Soobin's vocal criticisms on his _very healthy_ eating habit. He is a growing boy and exhausted after being on run the whole day, just two servings of stir-fried pork can barely be considered _a lot_. 

Yeonjun had every intention of telling everyone about his new discovery— fingertips tapping on the wooden table and words at the tip of his tongue.

 _"Guess what I found! Beomgyu apparently had a crush on me when he was baby!"_

But the words were stuck behind his lips and got harder and harder against his tongue as his conscience kicked in. He wondered if Beomgyu would like to have something like that exposed without prior private discussion. He may have been eight and he probably doesn't feel that way anymore but that doesn't equate to him not being vulnerable about it. Beomgyu is, after all, more sensitive than he lets others believe.

It's a bad idea. _Not worth the giggles_ — Yeonjun decides. So, instead of indulging in his previous plans any further, he finds himself sitting beside Beomgyu and silently listening to him being loud with their friends while swimming in an ocean of his own thoughts. He hopes the glances he is stealing goes unnoticed by everyone. 

It's not that he has never wondered if he has feelings for Beomgyu, he has. Frequently now, because their friends are so nosy and annoying and always talking about how they basically behave like a couple. Which, Yeonjun will agree, that they do. But it is also true that they have known each other for a very long time. They practically met at a daycare when Yeonjun was nine. Beomgyu was seven. And then they never lost contact despite going to different schools. Now, it's been a year since they have been attending the same university.

It's not that they have grown up together, no, they have actually spent longer aching for each other's presence than they have spent together. There was once a period of time when every time they met during vacations, they had to get used to seeing each other in a completely new shape— longer limbs, wider shoulders, deeper voices, but still more familiar than anything. Both of them had other friends too, people who had been beside them throughout the school year and always been ready to offer a shoulder when they needed it. Yet, at the end of the day, at the end of long school hours, longer school months and exam periods that were filled with so much impatience, they always looked forward to the breath of fresh air, the soothing vacations that was: each other's presence.

They are two puzzle pieces, _a set_ , Beomgyu's mother had once joked and Yeonjun agrees. They are indeed puzzle pieces that sit next to each other— Inseparable since their first meet and always saving an empty space for the other even when they aren't together. Their closeness is something that planted roots in their hushed whispers in the dark of the night, pale flashlights lighting patches on Yeonjun's mom's kitchen counter, glimpses of blinding smiles and Yeonjun lifting Beomgyu on his shoulders to steal the cookies on the cabinet that was too high to reach. 

It has made Yeonjun lose sleep on many occasions. He has spent nights wondering if the way he likes to fit his fingers between the gap of Beomgyu's means more to him than just the comfort of familiarity, if the way he likes the sight of Beomgyu's toothbrush in his bathroom can mean more than just the comfort of knowing Beomgyu sees a home in him. Yeonjun doesn't know if, in the iridescence of the memories they have made and the things that they shared, there exists the cherry red of the electrifying love that they talk about in movies. It's true that he loves Beomgyu and Beomgyu's room is like his second home. But what is the line between love and _Love_? How is he supposed to search for it amidst all their platonic forehead kisses before goodbyes and cuddles during sleepovers? 

Yeonjun glances at Beomgyu once again. He watches the way his face is lightened up with a smile like the sun, the way the ends of his eyes crinkle into happy little lines, the way one side of his cheek is puffed with food as he is busy throwing a threat at Taehyun. 

"If you dare move your chopsticks towards my plate, I will snap them in half, Kang Taehyun," he says, glaring at Taehyun for daring to reach for the last piece of meat. 

"You weigh like a feather, I would like to see you try, " Taehyun retorts as he retracts his hand. Beomgyu glares at him for a while before Kai cuts in.

"Here Taehyunnie, I will give you mine," he immediately places his own piece onto Taehyun's plate which makes Beomgyu roll his eyes. Yeonjun too, looks at them, amused at how Kai is being so generous as if he doesn't always fight over the last piece himself. Taehyun completely shuts up and instantly the room becomes silent with the sheer amount of tension. Soobin too is looking at Taehyun now, _great_. 

"Oh my god… what's this mood" Beomgyu says under his breath and turns to Yeonjun, a frustrated smile on his lips. 

_Look at them, they are so whipped._

Yeonjun mirrors his expression.

_I know right?_

Seemingly unbothered, Beomgyu happily goes back to munch on his much treasured piece of meat with a little happy sound. Yeonjun's eyes fall on his very busy lips, and he notices one corner smeared with a bit of sauce from the dip. Instinctively, his hand immediately reaches for the box of tissue beside him. 

It's so normal for him to do this: to notice things about Beomgyu that the younger doesn't so that he can take care of him, and perhaps he is overthinking it too. But for the first time in a while, he stops midway when he realises what he is doing.

Once again, the same question flashes before him. _What is love?_

* * *

Time flies fast when you are a college student. Spring is short before, once again, everyday is a race between time and the assignments sitting on the desk. Summer is reduced to a few moments for catching your breath before midterms knock the door. Yeonjun was barely getting used to the hues of fall, his favourite time of the year, when the city started to paint itself grey and white. A forlorn feeling creeps up his bones when he wakes up one evening to see the gentle flakes of the first snow making wet spots on his windowsill. Winter is not Yeonjun's favourite. 

"This year it's snowing too early," Yeonjun thinks as he climbs the cemented stairs up the performing arts dorm building. 

The five of them had made plans of meeting up at a cafe to hangout as a group after another excruciating round of finals were over for the year but the sudden weather development made them change plans. Now Yeonjun and Soobin are seated in Taehyun and Kai's dorm, waiting for the other three of the group to arrive. Soobin orders Pizza and Yeonjun asks him to add in an order of Tteokbokki too (because Beomgyu loves it a little too much and he knows he won't hear the end of it if they don't order it) and he sits scrolling through his phone, mindlessly. 

That is, until Soobin speaks. 

"So are you finally planning on confessing or are we going to spend another year watching the two of you hang around each other?"

Yeonjun's heart skips a beat. He knows exactly what Soobin is referring to. It has been months since Yeonjun discovered a secret that he probably wasn't meant to. Months since his heart has started skipping a beat whenever he catches a glimpse of Beomgyu by the campus. Yeonjun wonders if it's a recent development or if it has always been here, stuck to his bones, waiting for him to notice.

"What are you talking about?" 

He decides to feign obliviousness although he knows it sounds foolish right now. 

"Beomgyu," Soobin hits right on spot. He has lowered his phone and fixed Yeonjun with a challenging gaze, daring him to avoid the topic again. But Yeonjun is not one who is easily intimidated— especially not by a huge bunny boy like Soobin of all people. So he ignores his pointed gaze and turns his back to his phone. 

"I've told you we're just friends, there's nothing more to it." Yeonjun says, his tongue oddly heavy as they twist around the word— "Friends". 

"But you want something more," Soobin states and Yeonjun's heart almost falls off it's rhythm.

He has thought of _what more_ a lot the whole year. He used to think his relationship with Beomgyu is boundless like the expanse of the ocean— they can already do everything he wants. He can hold Beomgyu anytime, his whole body warm in his embrace and his breath falling on Yeonjun's neck. When Beomgyu calls him on nights that he can't sleep, Yeonjun can talk to him until light breaks through the dark blue outside his window and Beomgyu's gentle breath evens out on the other side. He used to think that's all, there can be nothing more. 

But of course he was wrong again. Having the whole ocean in his hands has made Yeonjun curious about the stars. He watches them glimmer inside Beomgyu's eyes, watches the stardust on his cheekbones when the sun catches his face. He had learnt about the part of him that is locked inside the dungeons of his heart when he watched the younger call his name with his strawberry stained lips this summer. He has finally realised the terrible ache of a _want_ he did not know he carried.

And yet.

"Shut up and worry about your own love life, you stupid shit," Yeonjun tells Soobin. His voice strutters a little and he knows the younger's sharp ears have caught on to it too. Well, with all the psychoanalysis he has tried on him, Soobin already knows Yeonjun like the back of his hand, anyways. He already knows the way Yeonjun takes three steps back with each step forward. 

"Why are you so scared of admitting it to yourself?" Eyes narrowed, the younger looks at him as if he is trying to understand the mass of thread that makes the insides of Yeonjun's head.

Yeonjun stays silent and pretends his mind hasn't asked him the same question a million times before it was silenced with the grip of fear in his bones. Because admitting that you are in love with your best friend is complete submission to fate— the final freefall down the cliff that could take you to a new world or crush your bones to dust. It terrifies him.

"Whatever," Soobin's frustration ebbs into defeat at the elder's silence. "Don't come to me crying when Beomgyu's new carol group friend snatches him while you're still in the depths of your denial."

The window rattles with the force of wind, his heart does the same at the new information. He finally pulls his head back up to look at Soobin. Yeonjun knows he has stepped right into the younger's trap. _Stupid psychology majors_.

"Gotcha," Soobin says, under his breath, looking a little too happy about himself. Yeonjun wants to pull Soobin's ears.

"Carol group friend? Who is it?" He asks instead, an odd feeling coursing through this veins that makes him hold his breath.

Yeonjun hasn't heard of any specific carol group friend. He does know that Beomgyu and some of his vocal class classmates are going for carolling at this event in a different university. Beomgyu had come to him bouncing on his heels last week, gushing to him about how excited he is because it is his first time singing somewhere that is not their own university. His eyes were shining even in the dull winter afternoon and they warmed Yeonjun up despite the freezing temperature. He is always a glowing ball of energy with the warmth of the summer skies. 

"His name is Hyunjin, a friend of Felix, my classmate. They are roommates so I met him when I went to give Felix some notes. He was so shy about asking for Beomgyu's number— it was cute," Soobin giggles a little at the memory and Yeonjun doesn't like it one bit. 

Something bubbles in his chest— something that he is afraid to name and yet he thinks he knows what it is. Almost involuntarily, he starts to think about a world where Beomgyu no longer has just him. There is someone else ready to hold his hand, someone making his cheeks flush, someone making him smile in a way that he cannot— and that is enough to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Yeonjun takes in a deep breath to rationalize himself. It's not like Beomgyu is _his_ — he is his own person who can fall in love and be happy with someone; _he wants that for Beomgyu too_ — for him to be happy. So he tries to hold his tongue, refusing to let any hint of sourness out. 

"Did you give it to him? The number- Beomgyu's." 

Of course Yeonjun fails to act like he is cool with it. Soobin raises his eyebrow at his sudden stumble on words. 

"Look at you already drinking vinegar," he lets out a scoff, "Of course I did not. He was so cute that I was tempted to but then I remembered that I have a catboy for a friend who would weep for days if I do that and I would have to take care of him— so I made an excuse of not having my phone instead."

Yeonjun is ashamed of the relief that washes over him. 

They don't get time to talk anymore because soon the doorknob twists open and the three second years walk into the room, loud and energised after turning in their final projects for the year. But that feeling plants itself like an unsettling ache behind Yeonjun's teeth, refusing to ease no matter how much he tries. He sits slightly more quieter than usual for the rest of the evening, pondering over his exchange with Soobin until Beomgyu notices. 

"Hyung, are you okay?" he says, voice low trying not to attract attention from the other three who are, as usual, in a world of their own. Yeonjun takes a deep breath and turns to look at him, puffy cheeks, downturned lips and concerned eyes fixed on Yeonjun's face. Such a simple sight yet so beautiful.

"I'm fine," he reassures the younger with a smile, "just a little tired."

Beomgyu looks slightly relieved and smiles right back, before the stars in his eyes twinkle at Yeonjun mischievously. He has something in his mind and the elder can hear his excited voice even before he can say anything. 

"Let's leave these three idiots alone and go for a walk," He suggests. "My leg is getting a cramp in here." 

"Out for a walk? It's snowing outside Beomgyu-ah, don't be silly you're gonna freeze," he says, giving Beomgyu an incredulous look. 

Beomgyu pouts in retaliation and oh, Yeonjun is already losing. 

"It's just a walk around the block before I go back to my dorm, _please hyung_." And of course that's an attack that Yeonjun can't stand strong against for longer than a minute. All it takes is Beomgyu's puppy eyes and he is already complying. He is that weak.

Ten minutes later he finds himself outside the grey dorm building, his hands slowly getting colder and colder inside his pocket and Beomgyu skipping before him. 

It's not snowing any longer so that's a relief. The snow caught between the gaps of the pavement crunch against Yeonjun's boots as he tries to match his step with Beomgyu's. The younger looks like he is in his own world, too excited about something and dancing on his step like a little kid. It's like the winter around them is just an illusion and Beomgyu is the real season— a piece of summer that warms your bones with the mere sight of him.

"Yah, you called me to walk with you in this freezing weather and now you're ignoring me?" He calls out playfully. 

"Yeees!" Beomgyu answers, without even turning around, still skipping on the pavement, his voice just as carefree and playful as his actions, making the elder smile. Beomgyu's emotions are always so contagious.

As Yeonjun watches the back of Beomgyu's bouncing head, he feels a sense of Déjà vu back to March in Beomgyu's vacation house, sitting beside him and letting himself feel the indentation of Beomgyu's shape on the bedrock of his existence. He has felt it multiple times throughout the year because it is when Beomgyu is deep in his own world that Yeonjun wonders what would become of _his_ world if he did not meet this boy back then. Would he even be the Yeonjun that he is today?

It's a question with no right answer when your life has been intertwined with someone so early on, but Yeonjun thinks his tendency to take care of people had begun with Beomgyu. They met and became friends in a daycare when Yeonjun was a whiny, troublemaker who refused to stay home alone after school. But they became friends after Beomgyu got into a fight with a few kids and got pushed to the ground. Yeonjun had found him crying and given him a hand. Ever since then— ever since Beomgyu had looked up at him in the playground with a scratched knee and teary eyes, ever since his heart decided he never wants to see those eyes devoid of their stars— a part of Yeonjun first started getting shaped into a person who can comfort, a person who wants to heal. 

( _"From now on hyung will take care of you Beomgyu-ah, so always hold onto my hand and don't ever cry again," said Yeonjun, giving his hand to the teary eyed boy sprawled on the dirty field._

_"Will you? Really hyung? You won't leave like them?" He pointed at the direction of the children who had just pushed him and then walked away, laughing._

_"Really, I promise." Yeonjun said, "Now, get up, let's get you cleaned up and then we can have the candies I showed you earlier."_

_The tears were clearing, the stars were slowly starting to light up again and Yeonjun felt so relieved._

_Beomgyu took his hand, cheeks wet but lifted into a growing smile_.)

Thus, Yeonjun, shoulders still frail yet so determined, welcomed the happy weight of worries for Beomgyu and he would never have it any other way. 

They knew each other before they learnt about love. Perhaps that is why it's so hard for Yeonjun to understand what it is to love your best friend. He is used to being a moon circling Beomgyu in his orbit, he's used to reaching out his hand and finding him right there, ready to warm his cold fingertips, ready to hold onto him. 

Yeonjun has never had to wonder what would happen if one day it all stops, if he dares change his orbit in a direction it's not meant for and everything falls apart. As the year grows shorter, a fear of losing Beomgyu has been gripping him more and more. His heartbeat echoes in his body like a ticking reminder of a realisation that is two steps short of rolling off his tongue for his own ears to get used to it. But there it is— the fear of losing everything under its crushing weight.

But what happens if someone else enters the scene and paints Beomgyu a sky that he cannot? What will Yeonjun become if Beomgyu gets a different pair of hands to steady him when he is about to fall? A different person to reach for when he is hurt? The very thought makes him fall short of breath. The sun is always much more brighter than the moon and he is scared of fading under its light.

"I was right, you are worrying about something. What is it?" Beomgyu's voice breaks Yeonjun out of his thoughts. He looks up to see that the younger has stopped skipping and he is now standing before him, jacket sleeves scrunched at his elbow and hand on his waist. Beomgyu has his mask on so Yeonjun can't make his expression well but he knows his eyes are narrowed at him.

The elder coughs sheepishly for getting caught spacing out once again and tries to smile at the younger hoping the residual nervousness from his intense thoughts don't show in his expression.

"I'm really fine," he says, again. "It's winter, you know how I get."

"Yeah, you start acting like a grandpa reminiscing war." Beomgyu rolls his eyes and Yeonjun frowns at him, letting his own lips pout in disappointment.

"Hey!" He exclaims in exaggerated rage, "I'm only twenty one that's far from looking like a grandpa!"

"It's the truth hyung," Beomgyu teases. His smile lingers on his face for a few moments before it fades and he takes in a deep breath, as if he is preparing to say something. Something is clearly making him hesitant to say the things he wants to say next, Yeonjun can tell. Anticipation builds in Yeonjun's nerves, as he directs his full attention on the boy before him. 

"Hyung," Beomgyu calls, voice lower than it was moments ago. He is fiddling with his fingers that are actually tucked inside the paws of his jacket. _How cute_ — Yeonjun can't help but mentally coo. 

"Yes, Beomie-ah, what is it?" Yeonjun prompts in an encouraging tone so Beomgyu feels a little more comfortable speaking his mind. He is rarely this hesitant with the elder so he, too, is a little nervous now.

"I know it's cold and… you want to go back home but… can you spare me a few moments?" He hears the younger say. He looks fidgety. Yeonjun's own worries grow. The aftertaste of the thoughts he was having a while ago is still sitting bitter and heavy at the back of his mouth and the tendrils of fear are slowly gripping tight around his ribs at this situation, he's not sure why. But he tries his best not to let anything slip out. 

Beomgyu licks his lips and nervously looks up at Yeonjun once and then sticks one of his hands inside his jacket. He looks like he is running his head a mile a minute and Yeonjun, despite his own anxiousness, tries hard not to giggle at how cute he looks. Unable to control his own urges and in hopes of slightly calming the boy down, he closes the distance before them and reaches forward to brush a bit of the younger's hair behind his ear. Beomgyu has always had very fluffy hair which makes Yeonjun want to pet him every chance he gets. 

At that, Beomgyu leans into his hand in his usual puppy-like manner that never fails to drive Yeonjun's heart insane. Beomgyu's head is cold and so is his hand so he can't really feel anything. But the sweet feeling still blooms in his chest just right. 

"Hyung," Beomgyu moves back from his touch and finally looks like he has made up his mind. He bites his lips before taking in a last deep breath. 

"I got you uh… your Christmas Present," Yeonjun hears him say and then it feels like a tiny little storm takes place in an instant. Before he can even process what Beomgyu said, the latter brings out a little paper bag— small, almost like an envelope— from the inner pocket of his jacket and shoves it into Yeonjun's chest. 

Taken aback by the suddenness of his action, the elder immediately struggles to balance the item that was pushed to him and places both his hands on it lest it falls. He looks down at it and watches the golden stars on the surface reflecting the pale white light in from the street lamp above them. He looks up and sees Beomgyu's who looks so nervous, the tips of ears have reddened and he is looking at Yeonjun's hand nervously. When he has processed the situation, the elder's previous worries finally melt away and instead his heart races hard. 

He feels a little speechless because he wasn't prepared for this at all so it takes him a few moments of gaping like a fish before he collects bits of his language knowledge from the mess of his tangled head.

"Oh my god… you… thank you so much Beomgyu-ah," Yeonjun manages to say. 

The air suddenly feels different— is it the rapidly decreasing temperature or is it something else? In any other situation it would be easy for him to give Beomgyu a hug and caress his head, tease him for giving him a present when it's not even December yet. 

_But how did things get so tense?_

He's not sure why but a nervousness, very different from the one he was feeling just moments earlier, washes over him and his hands twitch yet refuse to move from their place.

"Is it okay if I open it?" He asks instead, softly so the tension is not disturbed. The streets are almost empty because it's getting colder and colder but standing here right now, despite watching his own breath fall, Yeonjun feels warm. 

Beomgyu lowers his mask this time and Yeonjun's breath gets caught in his throat because _oh he is so beautiful_. The younger doesn't voice anything but he nods.

Yeonjun lets himself feel the flat surface of the bag first. It's white and gold and the details of plastic stars glimmer back at him. Almost accidentally, it takes him back to the envelope he had discovered back in March, in Beomgyu's shed. Then he slowly peels the little heart sticker Beomgyu has put to seal the mouth and flips it open, his fingers reach inside and he feels two pieces of paper. 

Curiously, he pulls them out and looks at the surface for a second. They are tickets. 

Tickets to a movie that he has been dying to watch, to be specific. Yeonjun audibly gasps, his eyes go round in shock and excitement. It's the tickets to a show that is only going to be screened once in their city and he had failed to get them since they were sold out in minutes. He is beyond the moon to be able to receive something like this. But he is also a little shocked. He has never mentioned anything about wanting to watch the movie to Beomgyu, how does the younger even know about it?

"Beomgyu-ah," Yeonjun manages to say, disbelief evident in his tone, "thank you so much I- I don't even know what else to say."

"You don't have to say anything, hyung," Beomgyu replies. It seems as if he has grown slightly confident after seeing Yeonjun's reaction. "I'm glad you like it."

"But...how?" Yeonjun asks, still looking at the tickets, mouth agape. He simply cannot believe this. He runs his fingers on the shiny surface, gripped in awe and then looks up at Beomgyu with his best smile not knowing what else to do. 

Beomgyu beams back before answering.

"Remember when you wanted to learn cinematography? You mentioned that you got inspired by the works of a particular person. I heard my art club friends talk about wanting to watch this particularly because of the cinematography so I got curious and looked it up. When I saw that person's name in the DP credits, I decided to try and get them for you."

Now Yeonjun is surprised for a completely different reason. 

"I said that to you years ago," he gasps, awestruck and eyebrows raised, "I even stopped wanting to pursue that art…. How did you even remember?"

" _Hyung_ ," Beomgyu says, eyes glimmering with every star in the galaxy, "I remember everything about you."

There is something reaching Yeonjun through the constraints of his ribcage, dangerously close to his racing heart. It feels like a little butterfly, fluttering its wings inside him, trying to tell him something. Something he has known and yet denied for a little too long now. 

"Also this was very hard to get," Beomgyu continues, "I didn't get it on the website so I had to search all over for second hand sellers and god do people like this movie. I almost gave up before I finally found a seller. So you better be thankful."

"I am," Yeonjun says, without losing a beat, "Thank you so much Beomgyu. You are really the best." His cheeks hurt from how hard he has been smiling. 

"Yeonjun hyung I also…" Beomgyu stops between to lick his dry lips, a nervous habit. But Yeonjun's eyes follow the motion unknowingly. The sudden surge of a terrible, terrible want courses through his body. One that he thought he had shackled back inside the box in the deepest corner of his chest. He can once again hear it thumping at the walls. 

"Yeonjun hyung, will you go to watch the movie with me?" Beomgyu asks with his eyes squeezed shut, fists balled and with a snap, something physically shifts between them and Yeonjun cannot deny things anymore.

It's a simple question. They have gone to movies more times than he can count but it feels so different today that Yeonjun feels like it's his first time hearing this; first time standing before Beomgyu, first time receiving a gift from him.

Is it the look in Beomgyu's eyes— ones that are usually so confident around him but so nervous today? Or is it the sound of his own heart that is pounding so loud that he is scared Beomgyu can hear it? Is it because it's snowing again— falling like petals from the sky that disappear when held but have the power to make you feel like the main lead of some cheesy kdrama? Yeonjun stands still, mouth forming shapes of words but voice stuck behind his scratchy throat. It's like all the air is squeezed out of him and everything that remains of him is screaming Beomgyu's name. 

"Of course," he thinks he says. He can't hear anything over the sound of his heart. "Of course I will, Beomie-ah."

If Beomgyu catches wind of the way his entire world has started spinning out of control with that one question, Yeonjun doesn't have the time to worry about that. Because then, Beomgyu smiles. This time in a way Yeonjun hasn't seen before. Cheeks flushed red, crescents of his eyes downcast, his adorable little dimple deepened into his puffed out cheeks and his shy lips tinted with the colour of the chapstick Yeonjun has always liked on Beomgyu. He looks like a blooming flower that calls your eyes— so so pretty. 

Yeonjun wants to kiss him, he suddenly realises. He wants to put his hands around Beomgyu's cheeks and feel Beomgyu's lips against his own, he wants to feel the cherry coloured chapstick that looks so lovely on his lips, he wants to taste the smile that lifts the corners of his lips so prettily, he wants to kiss him so bad. _This is terrible_ , he thinks when the younger licks his lips again and all senses leave his body. 

Seconds pass in silence and for the first time since they became friends, things get very awkward. Yeonjun hears Beomgyu mumble a "I'm going in," before the sound of rushed footsteps starts and then fades. His feet stay frozen as Beomgyu's disappears in his dorm building. Yeonjun didn't even realise they were in front of it. 

The conscious part of his head scrambles to hold onto the ground after a literally crushing knowledge weighs down on him. It's ringing in his head, swirling around his existence like an overdue storm. Suddenly Yeonjun can feel every nook, every corner of the expanse of his soul jerk into life and he sees it all— His feelings are staring at him in the face. 

He wonders just how much of his feelings for Choi Beomgyu has become one with his very existence that it took him this long to realise their true nature. Beomgyu is his happiness and every little thing that makes him happy somehow has Beomgyu in the story. Because he is summer in a person, the reason why Yeonjun can bloom, because their hands fit together like they are meant to be, because of hushed whispers in the dead of the night and all the times he went to bed with a smile after a bad day and because Beomgyu brightens his day just with his existence in his life. 

He has really taken his own sweet time to let himself answer the question he had asked himself back in March, at Beomgyu's vacation house. 

Yeonjun laughs, snow falling heavier around him. It's cold but he tries to make himself hope that it's lukewarm like a new beginning. 

Then he whispers to himself, to the night.

"Guess this is love, after all."

* * *

December crawls in as Yeonjun learns to swallow the gnawing fear and let himself feel things. It's beautiful to be in love with Beomgyu, he realises. He thought once he admits it, once he finally names the ache that's settled deep in his chest, it would crush him down. It does but it feels like a weight he has somehow been itching to carry all along. It's like he finally let in the friend that had been knocking at his door for ages— he was weary of it, he still is, but it's nice to have a friend nevertheless.

But of course, the price of such a heavy realisation coming to him so late is just as hard to bear. Now Yeonjun's entire existence is aware of every little thing Beomgyu does. It's not that it wasn't already that way, no. He has been whipped for ages without realising but now that he has been gifted with the knowledge, it is becoming too much for him to bear. 

Everytime Beomgyu pops up with his adorable little face, Yeonjun wants to kiss him and he wants to hold his hand and he wants to take him out on sunny afternoon dates and breathe in the lavender scent of his shampoo without an excuse. He wants to watch the younger's cheeks get coloured in a lovely shade of red because of him and then run his fingers over them, he wants to hug him until their heart beats become a rhythm shared between them. 

He is suddenly so inexplicably aware of the want he has for Beomgyu, always swimming inside him and threatening to spill out everytime he is in the latter's proximity. 

_Has he always been so hungry to feel Beomgyu's hand intertwined with his own?_ — Yeonjun wonders, as he watches Beomgyu work with Taehyun across the hall. The Performing Arts departments have been assigned with the task of decorating the hall for their university's Christmas event that's going to take place for two days starting tomorrow so they have all been in the hall since the morning. He hasn't been able to tear his gaze away from Beomgyu ever since.

"Wow… subtlety was never your forte but have we completely given up on it?" Soobin muses and Yeonjun snaps out of his Beomgyu tunnel-vision. 

"Shouldn't you be happy that you don't have to poke your nose into the inner works of my brain any more?" Yeonjun puts his attention back to untangling the fairy lights for the Christmas tree placed at the center of the hall. He doesn't even understand why Soobin is here because that boy is not even a part of performing arts. He's just an annoying psychology major who keeps making Yeonjun the subject for his experiments. 

"I am elated beyond words that you have finally seen the light, just a little worried about your well-being because you seem a little out of it in Beomgyu's proximity these days."

Yeonjun halts his work and looks up at Soobin, confused. 

"I'm out of it around him?" He asks, scrunching his eyebrows. Soobin heaves out a huge dramatic sigh in response and gives him a very tired gaze, as if he can't believe that he has to deal with this. 

"You have been spacing out for the past half an hour since Beomgyu has stepped into the hall, when he smiled at you earlier you literally turned redder than the Santa caps— I've seen you be whipped for him but never this out of it. You are behaving like a teenager going through first love."

Yeonjun widen's his gaze, dumbfounded. _Is he being that obvious?_

"Oh," he breathes out. Soobin snickers in disbelief.

"Yeah, _oh_. Pull yourself together hyung," Soobin looks back down at the tangles of fairy light in his own lap, before he raises his head again with a teasing smile. "Actually now that I think about it, he is probably your actual first love. My god this is so cliche. No wonder you're acting like a highschooler trying to steal glances across the cafeteria."

Yeonjun doesn't get a chance to make a comment about how Soobin of all people should refrain from teasing him about how he behaves around his crush because it's like the angels were already on their mission to call him out. 

Kang Taehyun presents himself before them, small in his oversize hoodie and looking a little troubled. Yeonjun's eyes immediately shoot towards Soobin to catch his expression (his only source of entertainment) and yes, the tables have very much turned. It's Soobin's turn to act out of it. 

"Hyung," Taehyun addresses the two of them but Yeonjun can see the way his eyes are lingering on Soobin way more than anywhere else. 

Soobin visibly struggles to form proper words and it's Yeonjun's turn to sigh and step in like the good friend that he is.

"What's up Taehyun?" He asks. Taehyun snaps his eyes from Soobin to look at Yeonjun. 

"We are setting up the decorations for the door but can't reach it. The stools are all being used so we were wondering if Soobin hyung can help us," he says, his eyes once again going to Soobin, expectantly.

Soobin seems to have recovered because he finally speaks. "Where is Kai? Did he not come?"

"Kai went to the store with the others," Taehyun informs, "We need cotton for the fake snow below the Christmas tree. A lot of it."

"Okay we're coming," Yeonjun says as he begins to dump the half-tangled mess of wires from his lap before standing up. He looks at Soobin staring longingly at Taehyun's retreating back and grins.

"Who's not being subtle now? Close your mouth before you catch a fly," He teases. 

"He looks so cute. How does he look so cute? It should be illegal," Soobin groans in response as they cross the hall to approach Taehyun and Beomgyu who are looking up at the door helplessly. 

"We're here," Yeonjun announces and Beomgyu instantly whips around making Yeonjun's heart produce a loud thump. 

"Hyung!" Beomgyu wails, a tiny pout on his face, "Thank god you're here, now save us with your long legs."

Truth to be told, Yeonjun is not all that taller either. In fact, he surpasses Beomgyu by one or two centimetres at most. So if the younger is finding it hard to reach the top of the door, there are big chances that he will too. But the stars that light up his darkest nights are glimmering at him— Beomgyu's eyes look so hopeful at the thought of Yeonjun saving the day for him that the elder decides if height is his problem then he has no choice but to defy biology. 

"Alright, move away. Let's set this door up."

Twenty minutes later Yeonjun and Soobin (mostly Soobin but Yeonjun's pride will never admit that) have successfully taped the tinsels and hung up the giant 'Merry Christmas' sign at the centre of the doorframe. Yeonjun tries hard not to be disappointed by the fact that he simply cannot hang up the last piece of decoration— a flower link that he had seen Beomgyu put together from across the room. It's supposed to go around the Merry Christmas sign and Soobin hangs it up while he hands him the tape. 

"Thank you so much hyung," Beomgyu says, although the most Yeonjun did was handing Soobin the scissors and tape and spending too long on his tippy toes to put up the glittery stars along the sides.

But regardless, Beomgyu is smiling at him and all sense of failure melts because making Beomgyu smile is a greater achievement than being able to decorate some door. Yeonjun can't help the fond gaze he casts at that and reaches to pat Beomgyu's head and like the little puppy that he is, he physically leans his head into Yeonjun's hand, eyes still in crescents looking too cute to be true. Yeonjun feels like his heart is moments from bursting out.

"You're working so hard," he says, not caring at the way his voice is giving away every bit of himself that he struggles to keep in around Beomgyu. "Want to catch a break?"

Beomgyu opens his eyes, already painted with their characteristic glimmer and Yeonjun is blown away by how much of an open book he is when he is excited. 

"Yes, please," he says, "let's go out for a while."

★★★

Beomgyu expressed that he wanted to eat something so Yeonjun had suggested they go to a brunch place but the younger, for some reason protested against it and pulled Yeonjun to the cafe near their campus. 

"There's food here too," he says as he pulls a reluctant Yeonjun's jacket-clad arm to drag him inside the shop. The doorbell chimes and the heater inside the room immediately buzzes against their cold cheeks.

"But it's almost lunch… we should have something heavy. You could let me take you to McDonald's at least," Yeonjun has lowered his resistance but he continues to whine behind Beomgyu while the latter pays him no mind. He immediately bends down and begins to scan the displays of baked goods. 

_His eyes look pretty when he is focused_ — Yeonjun's mind offers as he watches Beomgyu's eyelashes flutter. He then heaves out a sigh and smiles. He's a weak man, after all.

"Tell me what you want," Yeonjun mirrors Beomgyu's posture and begins to look through the display as well. "Hyung will get it for you, anything you want."

At that, Beomgyu makes a noise of disagreement. 

"No hyung," he says, straightening up and crossing his hands against his chest, "Today _I_ will buy you something."

It's not that they have any agreement that Yeonjun will always be the one buying things everytime they go out but it is just… _their thing_. It started with Yeonjun using the excuse of his pride as the _hyung_ but it is also because Yeonjun likes it. He is aware that he is spoiling that boy more than he already is but how can you not spoil Beomgyu? He is so easily amused, so happy even with the littlest thing; face always a picture of everything he is feeling. Buying him something empties your wallet but fills your heart. Yeonjun is glad his parents send him enough pocket money to sustain both himself and Beomgyu. 

Beomgyu has always used his weakness to his full advantage so his unusual determination for actually taking out his own wallet in the elder's vicinity is a shocker. Yeonjun turns to Beomgyu with a mildly flabbergasted look. 

"You will buy me something?" Yeonjun asks not trying to hide his disbelief. "Are you serious?"

"I said I will!," Beomgyu sounds offended, "Why? Have I never bought you food?"

Yeonjun straightens up and raises his eyebrow and watches the way Beomgyu's mind turns it's wheels as he begins to calculate and then he starts to sputter because of course he can't remember a single time he has had to pay when he is with Yeonjun.

"Ok maybe not… but today I will!" He says with a pout.

"Very suspicious coming from you," Yeonjun says, "Are you trying to bribe me into doing something?"

"Wow... you're really the worst." Beomgyu's mouth hangs open, astound on being accused of something like that, "I'm just trying to pay for you for once but you treat me in this way!" 

Yeonjun laughs at the way Beomgyu is glaring at him. He is just so adorable, Yeonjun thinks he might just die with the way the extreme adoration and fondness he feels for this boy squeezes his chest.

He might be teasing the younger but his insides also feel so warm and fuzzy at Beomgyu's sudden offer, sudden determination. _He wants to buy me something!_ — he gushes inside his head. It's not like it's something very huge or moving. But Beomgyu is looking at him, puppy eyes slipping through his strong resolve and pouty lips presenting a direct attack to his heart. He doesn't really understand why he is feeling this way or why Beomgyu looks like he really wants their usual roles to switch today but what he does know is that it does something to his own heart; it flips a summersault inside his chest and threatens to spill out. 

"Okay then," he gives in, "Today Beomgyu will treat his hyung."

The sheer happiness that lightened Beomgyu's face felt sweeter than the chocolate croissant he buys him. 

"Let me cut it up for us," Yeonjun offers once they are seated in the far corner of the place with their food and drinks.

"Hyung! The croissant first!" Beomgyu bounces on his seat and looks at the plate excitedly. 

"Sure."

The sweet smell of chocolate mingles with that of the warmth rising from the garlic baguette as Yeonjun cuts through it. 

"Try it," he pushes a piece towards the younger as he struggles to cut another for himself. "Is it good?"

Yeonjun lifts his eyes to watch Beomgyu chewing happily before he throws a thumb's up in response. 

"Tasty?"

"Mhm… very tasty," he smiles softly. 

Yeonjun's heart feels so full just watching the younger enjoy his food. 

"Hyung try it too," Beomgyu says, before he feels a piece of the bread poke at his lips. The moment he takes it in, the sweet filling bursts inside his mouth and the crispiness melts as he chews on it. It's delicious and he tells Beomgyu he likes it. That makes the younger give him a look so pretty and visibly overjoyed— Yeonjun thinks it's a sight more satisfying than anything else in the world.

Throughout the rest of the time he spends across Beomgyu, Yeonjun feels oddly shy. But he is relieved to notice Beomgyu has a pretty pink dusted over his cheeks too. He hopes it's not just the cold and it's because of the same reason as him. Although he can't really put a finger to what exactly is making him so giddy about sharing a table with Beomgyu when they have shared more than that. Beomgyu has his favourite pajamas in Yeonjun's apartment, half of his own clothes are scattered in Beomgyu's closet back home as well as in his dorm room, they have shared beds countless times, blanketing each other with their bodies as they cuddle. Yet, today it feels like they are flowers of different bushes, swaying towards each other but then shying away before touching. 

_"You're acting out of it."_

Soobin's voice rings in his head as Yeonjun sits and marvels at the shape of Beomgyu's lips as he sips on his chocolate milk latte. They haven't been talking much— a comfortable, yet nervous silence is spread between them, clearly because both of them are feeling something. Yeonjun hopes it's the same thing.

_Perhaps I'm really out of it—_ he thinks to himself. 

Their little bubble of silent stolen glances is interrupted by Kai when he texts Beomgyu that he has returned with the materials they were running short of. It's their cue to quickly finish stuffing the last of their food and leave the place. 

Yeonjun finds it so strange. 

This cafe has been around since he was a freshman and he has been here more times than he can count. It has even witnessed him in his half-zombie state during exam weeks twice a year when he needed the overpriced caffeine to make himself feel something.

But he thinks all of that became insignificant the moment he stepped in here with Beomgyu today. 

_Is this also because of love?—_ Yeonjun thinks as he walks beside Beomgyu, shoulders brushing, hands almost bumping. He thinks about the sunlit confines of Beomgyu's shed in Jeju, the pavement outside the performing arts' dorms, the ripple of feelings that rushes through him when he feels snow on his face these days, despite despising winter— all are things that were once nothing out of ordinary but now possess meanings that he holds as close as his bones. 

And now every time he will pass by this cafe, walk down this pavement, he knows he will feel the flicker of today that's trapped between his heart and place. Yeonjun is looking forward to it.

  
  
  


"Yeonjun hyung, will you come over to the art clubroom tomorrow evening?" Beomgyu asks as they are walking down the corridor towards the main hall.

"Need help again?" He looks over at the younger who shakes his head a little.

"No, not really," Beomgyu says as he pushes open the door to the hall. "Tomorrow evening before they put up the stalls for the-"

"A COUPLE UNDER MISTLETOE!" 

Both Yeonjun and Beomgyu wince at the sudden loudness. Once he has collected himself, Yeonjun looks over his shoulder to make sure Beomgyu is okay. 

"It's Yeonjun and Beomgyu!" Yeonjun turns his head towards the source of the noise on hearing his name and feels a little spooked by the bunch of people standing in his immediate vicinity, as if ready to pounce on him. He moves a little backwards to create some distance. 

"That was scary as hell, what the fuck" He gasps, "What do you want?" 

Looking around, he notices that the hall is empty and it's just them and four of his classmates here. They are his friends, specifically his troublemaker friends. He watches the way Wooyoung grins at him and the look San and Yeosang share before showing him all their molars in a very unsettling grin. He can almost hear an evil laughter oozing out of them. _Yeah this is not good_. 

"You're under the mistletoe!" Changbin is the one who finally speaks, this time in a less threatening volume.

"A _what_?" Yeonjun doesn't understand at first, still a little shaken and unable to process things. 

He feels a tug on his sleeve and turns to look at Beomgyu who looks like he is going through something extreme. He gives Yeonjun a strained look, that the elder still can't comprehend, before pointing up at the door frame. Yeonjun follows his hand wordlessly and then he sees _it_. There is a new addition to the decorations there. It's a plastic imitation of green twigs bunched and tied with a red ribbon fixed below Beomgyu's flower link. 

_Mistletoe_.

It hangs above them innocently staring at their dumbfound faces like the criminal in guise that it is.

Finally understanding what exactly that means, his eyes snap back to Beomgyu, this time mirroring the younger's panic.

His friends set a fucking mistletoe trap right at the most unavoidable place and they unknowingly stepped right into it. Yeonjun knows there is no way out of this without creating some bad feelings between himself and his friends. 

Of course, a small part of him— _very small,_ he will always argue— tickles the insides of his chest. _What happens if he does kiss him? This is a good excuse, isn't it?_

"No," he says out loud, not sure if it's directed to himself or his friends.

"Come on Yeonjunie, don't be a wet blanket," Yeosang frowns, "Keep up the spirit of Christmas!"

"The spirit of Christmas is right there— the tree we dragged out of the school shed this morning while sweating under six degrees," Yeonjun deadpans as he points at their giant tree. 

"But this is not a Church— we don't care about a fake tree and some fake snow. They don't even give us free presents," San grumbles, "what we do like to see is young love defying winter and blossoming into colours despite-"

Wooyoung slaps his hand over San's mouth.

"Just do it man, come on," he says before lowering his voice a little. "Actually…we planned this for Jihoon and his crush. If you do it then it will be easier for us to make them do it and maybe finally resolve that weird tension between them."

"Yeah, they have been hanging around each other for months now so hopefully this will crack some muted sense in their heads and make them get their shit together," Yeosang explains. Yeonjun does understand what they mean. He too has experienced the disaster that is Jihoon and Woojin and would definitely like to help their dumbasses out but… _not_ like this.

"Come on Yeonjun they are gonna come in here any moment, just do it," San pleads after prying off Wooyoung's hand. "You guys are basically a couple anyways."

How is Yeonjun supposed to explain that it's exactly because they are ' _basically a couple_ ' that he cannot do this. What seems like a thin line to cross for the others is actually dangerously seamless for Yeonjun. The two of them are close enough to be intimate in ways most 'friends' are not but there are some lines that look too much like a bait to take their chances with. Especially now that Yeonjun knows he has a growing ache and need for the younger lodged between his flesh and bones. 

Not to mention that he can't be kissing Beomgyu like this. It is not just something to be done half-heartedly in front of everyone just to humour a few friends. Beomgyu deserves to be kissed in a more meaningful way.

It's when Yeonjun decides that participating in your friends' schemes is not worth the pressure of consequences and definitely not worth Beomgyu's comfort that he feels the boy in question tug at his sleeve a second time. He turns to look at Beomgyu and watches the younger try hard to communicate with him through his eyes. It's the same look he gave Yeonjun back at the café a while ago— a flame of determination mixed with expectancy colouring his starry orbs. It's a face he makes when he wants something. 

_No way._

Yeonjun whips around completely and stares down at Beomgyu in utter disbelief. 

"Beomgyu…" he breathes out with a shaky voice, "it's okay you don't have to-"

But Beomgyu isn't looking at him now. He looks at Yeonjun's friends behind him and the elder is growing horrified by the moment as he watches the younger give them a huge grin. 

"I'm down," he says, teeth full on display. Yeonjun's heart stops beating.

"That's a sporty kid. Learn from him Yeonjunnie," someone cheers. That's the last thing he can make out before everything around him blurs into blotches and only Beomgyu remains clear as daylight, staring at him with those eyes that have the power to suck him in. 

"You don't mind, right hyung?" Beomgyu asks in a small doubtful voice, "because I don't but if you do then-"

"I don't mind!" Yeonjun almost exclaims with such passion that he is left dizzy. "If you are okay then… I don't mind."

"I'm okay," Beomgyu whispers.

He gulps before he replies, "Okay." 

Yeonjun feels like he is standing at the edge of a sea cliff disoriented and powerless against the wave that's about to wash him over with the promise of turning him into sea foam. 

The boy he loves so much, the one he would give up everything for is standing before him, lashes kissing his cheeks, eyes downcast and restless and with a face red like the sun at sunset. 

_For me, waiting for me_ — some part of him whispers in his head and that makes him advance forward. 

With a shaky hand Yeonjun reaches to cup his cheek, marveling at how beautifully they fit— like his hands were crafted for taking Beomgyu's warm face in them. His other hand settles on the small of the younger's back and he presses himself forward until their bodies are only a few centimetres away. Beomgyu feels so small in his arms, so pretty when he brushes his fingers along his glowing cheek, Yeonjun thinks he is at the top of the world.

With a gentle press of his thumb that's under the younger's chin, he prompts him to look at him. Beomgyu does, slowly, but can't keep his gaze set on Yeonjun's face for longer than a moment. It's so adorable that Yeonjun lets out a chuckle, feeling oddly charged by just that— as if it was the final push to let it go. Beomgyu is in his arms looking like the daydream he always locks between his ribcage, Beomgyu wants to do it and Yeonjun was built without the ability to deny him anything. Taking in a deep breath he leans in, the mythical electricity, it turns out, is actually the feeling of Beomgyu's breath against his own cheeks as he feels heat creep up his own face. Beomgyu is no longer looking at him. His eyes are shut in anticipation and Yeonjun strays a little because he is so distracted by the feeling of his cheeks under his fingertips, the sight of his pretty face so close up. 

Perhaps he admires for a little too long because something unexpected happens. Beomgyu's eyes suddenly bloom open and without any preamble, he feels a soft pressure against his lips, visibly tense and so unsure that it throws him off balance. Yeonjun has to push the younger back down on his feet before pressing his own lips forward and _then_ he kisses him. 

He thought he would feel his heart burst out and his echoing behind his ears but he doesn't feel them. All he feels is warmth— it's warm. Beomgyu's tastes just as warm as is. His lips are a little chapped but so perfect against his own. He moves unsure at first but soon follows Yeonjun's lead and kisses him— slow and sweet. He has always been a fast learner for everything that involves Yeonjun.

The desire that he has been keeping leashed for so long begins to slowly pour between them. He readjusts his hand on the younger's cheek and lets the other one take Beomgyu's own from where it was lingering at the padding of his jacket to place it next to his heart wondering if Beomgyu can feel the storm he rises in him. 

He's not sure for how long they stay like that, lips locked and drinking each other's breath but he hopes it's not too long. It is just so intoxicating to kiss Beomgyu's soft lips, to have him keen into his mouth, that he thinks he can lose hours just trapped in that sensation. Only when he begins to teeth against the younger's lower lip and Beomgyu sighs into his mouth so prettily that it suddenly kicks him in his stomach— they are in public, in the fucking main hall and in front of his friends. 

Hurriedly, he pulls himself off the younger hoping he's not being too harsh. Beomgyu looks up at him still in a daze, eyes half lidded and lips slick and red— so inviting that Yeonjun almost leans in again. But instead he offers him what he thinks is a smile before turning his panicked gaze towards his friends. He feels a little relieved to see all of them have their backs to him.

"Did they stop?" Yeonjun hears San wail. If the heavy weight of embarrassment did not start settling heavy at the pit of his stomach, he would laugh at the way his friends are trying so hard not to disappear. 

"Stop overreacting my god," Yeonjun says, his voice going a little louder than he anticipated. His friends turn around with faces cringed and only Wooyoung is looking at him with somewhat of a smile. Yeonjun is grateful for that inkling of actual positive energy. 

"Can you blame us? You weren't supposed to be making out," San says with disbelief, "thank god we made sure to empty the hall for lunch break or…"

"Nah they looked like they didn't even care about anyone," Changbin winks. Yeonjun opens his mouth to protest that they weren't making out but then he feels a presence behind him. 

"Is something going on?" It's Jihoon's voice.

"Oh! Jihoon, Woojin! You're under the mistletoe!" Wooyoung exclaims in the same voice that he had used before on Yeonjun and Beomgyu. Finally, their actual prey are here.

Instead of going back in, Yeonjun steps out of the hall into the corridor to give the other couple their way. He realises he has forgotten to check on Beomgyu— partly distracted by his friends but mostly because he was too overwhelmed by his feelings to properly look at him. So he feels a little dumbfounded when he turns back in hopes of catching a glimpse of the boy but is met with the empty corridor and the sound of disappearing footsteps. 

That is when it properly hits him. He kissed Beomgyu. Blood rushes back to his brain carrying images of what just happened and he is going absolutely insane. The sudden feeling of reality against his flesh after that mind numbing experience gets him overwhelmed beyond words. Perhaps it's good that Beomgyu is not here. 

Not knowing what else to do with himself, he moves towards the nearest wall and bangs his head against it, fully acknowledging the way he is completely fucked. 

* * *

The Christmas Fest is a lot of work, a lot of running around from stall to stall, a lot of ushering strangers and just so tiring in general that Yeonjun doesn't have time to properly contemplate the result of whatever happened with Beomgyu the previous day. Almost. Whenever he passes by the main hall, whenever he catches glimpses of his friends while moving around Yeonjun feels heat creep up his neck. He is not one to get flustered very easily but this time he is too embarrassed to cool down so fast. He hasn't even spoken to Beomgyu since then. He knows he is here because he caught glimpses of the younger helping people around but they never had the time or courage to make the first move to communicating, now that the situation is so awkward. 

When the pale afternoon is blooming into a short-lived golden evening, Yeonjun finally feels like he has actually recovered from the happening back at the hall. He decides that he is ready to face the younger without turning red and makes his way towards the Art Clubroom since Beomgyu had mentioned it the previous day. 

A curious smile plays on his lips when he steps into the room to see Beomgyu sitting on the ground in one corner, his brows knit in concentration, his eyes lowered as he works with strings and beads that are lying astray in the middle of his stretched out legs. He is yet to notice the elder's presence. 

Yeonjun wonders if he remembers mentioning it to him at all since they were rudely interrupted by his friends right after that. 

_"Yeonjun hyung, will you come over to the art clubroom tomorrow evening?"_

Yeonjun didn't get to hear the reason back then but all he got was Beomgyu needed his help with something here and he is not skipping that for anything. 

"I'm here, Beomgyu-ah," Yeonjun finally announces his presence, "Are we making something today?"

Deep in the depths of his artistic space, Beomgyu doesn't hear Yeonjun and continues to work without pausing. It is only when Yeonjun sits on the desk across the younger and his shadow casts over Beomgyu's workspace that he is finally aware of his presence in the room. He looks up, utterly taken aback and his round, shocked eyes meet the elder's. Yeonjun gives him his usual smile hoping that can make him feel at ease. Relief washes through his own body when he watches the younger relax, tense shoulders fall back before he returns it. An unknown grip behind his own neck unknots itself at Beomgyu's smile widening into his signature carefree grin. 

The awkwardness after their previous interaction has finally melted. He finally feels reassured about the worries that he has been holding for more than a day now. 

"Oh hyung," Beomgyu finally acknowledges him, voice low and eyes glowing caramel against the sunlight, "you remembered?" 

"You said you needed my help and then proceeded to ignore me," he replies, still smiling as he peers down at Beomgyu's lap. "You're making bracelets?" Yeonjun's eyes light up the moment they land on the little beads that Beomgyu has been putting together.

"Yeah," Beomgyu answers with a dimpled smile.

"Whoa they are so pretty, Beomie," Yeonjun hops off the desk and crawls towards where Beomgyu is sitting for a closer look. There are few bracelets strewn amidst the mess on the floor, each made of flower-shaped beads. He picks them up and observes them, feeling a little awestruck although this is not his first time holding things Beomgyu has made. He just can't help getting amused by each and every one of Beomgyu's creations. Yeonjun, himself, is not the best with his hands but over years of helping Beomgyu (who has always been interested in art and crafts) during summer breaks, he can say that he has acquired some skills of his own. Initially he just wanted to help the younger but soon it awoke some dormant artist in him and Yeonjun started getting interested in art and crafts as well. 

Everything Beomgyu makes is beautiful to Yeonjun. Even when Beomgyu is disappointed with his work, Yeonjun thinks what he makes is prettier than anything else in the whole world.

He has always had an exceptional artistic sense that kind of made the elder a little jealous at one point. It was childish but Beomgyu's habit of giving him(and everyone) random handmade gifts made him want to be able to do it too. 

But watching Beomgyu work on making things is his favourite.

He loves that pretty look on the younger's face when he peers down, hands busy with the things he is making. His heart chases the shadow of his lashes over those focussed eyes, the pink pouted lips, the pretty fringes as they fall on his brows— Yeonjun's likes to look at the way Beomgyu's careful little fingers graze over his creations, and when he is so excited after making something that the whole galaxy shines in his eyes. 

  
  


"We were preparing for the fundraiser we have each year and this time we made jewelry. There were some left over beads so I thought I could make us some too," Beomgyu explains. 

"So you made these for us?" Yeonjun asks, pointing at the ones he has in his hand. Beomgyu shakes his head.

"Those are for Soobin hyung, Kai and Taehyun," he says before holding up two other strings of beads to Yeonjun's face. " _These_ are ours." He dangles the strings right before him and Yeonjun has to steady the younger's restless hand with his own before his eyes can focus on them. 

"So these are ours," He muses, letting his free hand rise up to brush across the plastic circles as he studies the items. Unlike the others, these actually look like _matching_ bracelets— both made of translucent red and white beads but are distinguishable by their centre-pieces. One has an orange-tinted glass bead that also looks like a tiny slice of orange while the other has a similar glass bead but with yellow tint and is shaped like a lemon. An endearing smile blooms on Yeonjun's lips at how lovely and adorable they are. 

"You suddenly felt like making bracelets huh?" He asks without really putting much thought to it, still dazed by how pretty they are.

"Yeah… I mean…" through his peripheral vision he watches Beomgyu make some vague hand gestures, "these were going to go waste anyways so I thought why not…you know…" 

He is nervous, Yeonjun notices once he looks up and sees a blooming red on the tips of his ears. He doesn't really need an explanation, to be honest. He has always been so gone that even if Beomgyu gives him the most bullshit reasons for things, he nods away in complete understanding. But what amuses him is the way the younger looks so flustered right now. _How come he is so flustered today? We have done this before_. 

"Beomgyu-ah," he says, voice lowered and eyes following Beomgyu's fleeting gaze until he locks it in place. "I like it very much." 

Under his sudden intense attention, the younger gulps before replying, "Of course you do. They are pretty after all."

"Yes," Yeonjun agrees and presses forward, one hand still over Beomgyu's, until he is close enough to smell in his vanilla-scented lotion. He can feel the younger get pinned in place by his actions and looking at him with panicked eyes. "Just like you Beomgyu-ah," he whispers close to the younger's ear.

Yeonjun feels very pleased when he sees the gorgeously deepened flush completely spread around the younger's dumbstruck face at that comment, right before he moves away. He's really so easy to mess with. Yeonjun knows it's something he will struggle not to take advantage of.

"Which one is mine?" He asks, finally moving his attention back on the bracelets that are gleaming like amber in the younger's hand. 

"This one is yours," Beomgyu, still in a daze, places the one with the lemon bead in Yeonjun's palm. "And this one is mine."

Yeonjun makes a noise of understanding. He had been eyeing the lemon one too. Not because he likes lemons but it fits his hair which is a fading yellow right now. Beomgyu probably had the same thought when he decided on this. 

"Let me put it on you," Beomgyu says, previous nervousness bubbling into excitement again. The younger charges for his hand and drags it forward. His touch is soft and burns Yeonjun where it is pressed against the heel of his palm. Beomgyu slides in the band and adjusts it so the little lemon is at the centre of his wrist. The elastic tightens around him once the younger let's go of it. Yeonjun looks at it as the glass catches the thinning sunlight. It looks good on him.

Across him, he notices Beomgyu trying to wear his own and surges forward to help before he even realises what he is doing. 

"Let me," he says and takes the younger's hand in his own for a second time. His wrists are tinier and it fits so well in the palm of his hand that he almost forgets his purpose. Attentively, he repeats Beomgyu's previous actions on his hand this time— slides in the bracelet and adjusts it so that the charm is settled at the right place. He takes a moment to admire the way it looks on Beomgyu before moving back and beaming at him.

"We are matching now," he says with too much happiness in his voice. Beomgyu nods, mirroring his smile.

"Why are you orange, though?" He then asks, glancing at Beomgyu's wrist again. But the moment he let's the question slip out of his mouth, he thinks about how Beomgyu _is_ kind of 'orange'. He is good at looking tough but it's so easy to tear his skin that Yeonjun has spent a lifetime wondering how to shed him from tears. He is so small yet holds so much inside him— so many thoughts, so many feelings and so much to give, sometimes Yeonjun wonders how he holds that much inside his little body. He is so sweet too, so lovely. He is like fall sunsets that are so orange and red and golden, an unforgettable sight you want to always keep as a polaroid in your heart. Orange, the word, fits him well. 

"I don't know I just like oranges," Beomgyu replies with a shrug. Yeonjun keeps his realisation a secret for now. 

"And why am I lemon?" He asks instead, although he kind of knows the answer already.

"Because of your hair… it's yellow like lemons," Beomgyu states, then puts a hand on his chin thoughtfully, "and…"

"And…?" Yeonjun prompts, surprised that there's more to it.

"Because lemons are sour like you," he says scrunching up his nose as if he's disgusted. Yeonjun playfully pouts and feigns hurt. 

Clutching his heart as if Beomgyu has bruised him there, he whines, "How dare you call me sour! I'll have you know I'm the sweetest person ever."

"Eh? Look at you being delusional, you sour boy," Beomgyu says before sticking out his tongue. He's annoying Yeonjun on purpose, the elder knows because it's that brat's favourite thing to do. But that doesn't mean he won't attack.

"Take it back!' he exclaims as he leans closer. Beomgyu, still face full of mischief, leans backwards, away from Yeonjun who extends a hand to get ahold of him. 

"Hyung you have to live with it," Beomgyu says, audacious even when he is clearly at odds, "You are a sour-faced-" 

Before he can finish his sentence Yeonjun closes the last bit of distance between them and Beomgyu loses his balance and topples backwards into the floor. Yeonjun is quick to cushion the younger's head with his hand but that's all the mercy Beomgyu gets before Yeonjun begins to tickle him uncontrollably. 

At once Beomgyu breaks into a fit of laughter, the noise bouncing off the walls and making Yeonjun laugh as well. He tries to move away but Yeonjun is stronger and there's no escape from his attack unless he gives the elder what he wants. 

"Take that back!" Yeonjun says in between laughter, "tell me I'm the sweetest!" Beomgyu, who is still trying to resist the elder's clutches, only throws a few punches and kicks at him while wriggling on the floor in pained laughter. 

"Hyung! Hyung stop!" He manages to say in between giggles, Yeonjun laughs a little louder and hovers over him entirely, still continuing his action. 

Beomgyu's laugh is his favourite sound in the world. He's a loud boy and his laugh is louder and now he is under him, laughing with his whole body. Yeonjun wishes he could freeze this moment and forever bask in here with the evening that's still golden and cast over them, laughter in their breath and Beomgyu right here so close and looking up at him through his crescents, smiling hard enough for cheeks to hurt. 

Yeonjun lets his fingers stop their torturous motion and looks down at Beomgyu who is catching his breath. Yeonjun too, takes in a deep breath. 

"This is why I called you sour," Beomgyu wails playfully, still a little breathless, "You are so merciless towards my little self and for what, you monster?" 

"Oh, I'm a monster now?" Yeonjun laughs, he's been laughing so hard that he feels his stomach ache. Beomgyu is so adorable that he can't even be mad. He will be whatever the younger wants him to be as long as they are together. 

"Yeah… I guess I am all that now, aren't I?" Yeonjun admits and Beomgyu gives him a look of triumph from underneath. It doesn't last for too long though.

Impulsively, Yeonjun cups a hand around Beomgyu's face to feel the way it's absolutely warm. Warm like he feels everywhere now that he is aware of how close they are. He can push down the slightest and his lips would meet the bridge of Beomgyu's nose; a little more would make him meet the lips that he now knows the taste of. He knows Beomgyu notices it too. Pinned by his hand, under his gaze, the younger is flushed again and has a poorly masked anticipation on his face. Yeonjun feels oddly proud that he has enough power to do that— to make the younger get so flustered that he can't focus his eyes anywhere except on Yeonjun's.

"But I do know something else, Beomgyu-ah," he whispers in the distance between them. "I do know that you like sour things. So that means you like this sour hyung too, right?" 

Beomgyu blinks up at him once, twice— visibly processing his words and then he is pushing Yeonjun off from above him and scrambling away, preparing to leave. The elder loses his balance and falls on his arm with a thud. It hurts but he is laughing. Beomgyu screams that he is leaving before he gathers himself up and rushes out of the door in a flash, leaving Yeonjun to giggle at the memory of his flustered face, caught completely off guard by his comment. 

"He's the cutest," Yeonjun thinks to himself for the millionth time, heart full, so full. He thinks this is the most in love he has been since he realised his feelings. He wonders how much longer he can keep it pressed between his soul and his beating heart.

* * *

Christmas approaches with heavy footsteps as the short evening snowfalls become a slightly more frequent happening. Yeonjun gazes out of his window and watches the way crystals have started gathering on the windowsill. 

After the trainwreck equivalent of feelings hit Yeonjun's system at day in the Art room, the weeks are suddenly going at an excruciating speed as if the days are struggling to turn over to a new one and it's driving him insane. He once again realises why he hates this particular season— because it's so comfortless, colourless and so damn slow. When Yeonjun expresses his poetic melancholy, back against their sofa and eyes fixed on the ceiling, Soobin rolls his eyes from where he is sitting at their little kitchen table still typing away his assignment on his laptop. 

"You're just moping because Beomgyu isn't paying you all the attention in the world," he hears the younger say. 

Yeonjun would protest that he is wrong, that he has always hated winters because things always hurt tenfold more when it's cold, be it light scratches or open cuts. But it's also true that missing Beomgyu, his summer in this hopeless season, makes it worse. 

It's been more than a week since he has last seen Beomgyu properly, without the younger being too tired to talk or too indulged in practice to spare him some time. The last week of classes before holidays are not very serious and usually consists of professors assigning a bunch of assignments to do over vacation and preparation for inter-school events. Beomgyu and his carolling team began their rehearsals a day after their university's Christmas Fest was over and suddenly he became the busiest person in town.

They did run into each other once in the hallway when Yeonjun was heading to the dance practice room. Beomgyu had suddenly run into his arms out of nowhere like a little petal from faraway spring. He had made himself smaller, tucked his head under Yeonjun's chin and circled his arms around the elder's torso and was wailing about how his team was just informed that they are supposed to be singing the English versions of the songs and not the Korean ones. Which meant in addition to practicing their vocals, they needed to learn the lyrics and pronunciations as well. Yeonjun had patted his head to comfort him and told him it will be okay. 

"I won't be able to see you until Christmas," he had said then, cheeks pressed against Yeonjun's heart that was almost about to burst.

"It's okay," he had replied, "I'll see you at Kai's place on Christmas day and then we have that movie to go to the next day too— we can make up for missing our Christmas Eve." Beomgyu had nodded reluctantly. 

But it was not okay. It hasn't been okay ever since because that was the last of warmth Yeonjun has felt in what seems like forever. He is surprised by how much he misses the younger now because they have spent their whole life being apart for long periods of time. It's only been two years that they are sharing more time than a few days during holiday months. Now suddenly the more time they spend apart, the more feelings pile up in his chest like the snow outside— blue and harsh against his ache. Perhaps he has grown a little too attached, perhaps it's the long, grey days, or perhaps now that he is aware of his feelings, he can't go back to the time when he ignored the empty space that Beomgyu's absence always left him with.

"It's just been a week and a half, dude," Soobin says after listening to Yeonjun's rather dramatic monologue about feeling a Beomgyu-shaped hollow in his chest. "Stop acting like you guys broke up… you aren't even together."

Yeonjun sits up immediately and stares at Soobin with a contemplative gaze. 

"Should I just do it? Go ahead and confess?" He asks, more to himself than to Soobin. 

"I think we have had this conversation like five times this week," Soobin stops typing and fixes the elder with an exhausted look, "And my answer is still the same: please, _please_ confess and save me and the rest of us from this misery."

"But the best day for confessing is already booked," Yeonjun wails and falls back on the couch. Beomgyu's event takes place on Christmas Eve after all. 

"Why did they even arrange this on a Christmas eve? Don't they have other things to do?" Yeonjun exclaims in extreme dismay. 

"Apparently they even called in some important foreign guests so it's not like we can barge in without a formal invite either," he hears Soobin say. 

Of course, Yeonjun thinks, that's why Beomgyu and his team are trying their best to perfect their performance.

But that leaves him in utter distress. It's Christmas Eve soon and he feels an itch in his bones that really want to spill out his guts and just _confess_. 

Soobin had laughed at his weird admission. 

"I appreciate that you want to confess, but why does it have to be Christmas Eve? Just wait for another day and do it on Christmas day." Yeonjun shakes his head vigorously.

"No, it _has to be_ on the eve."

The night when he knows Beomgyu used to hang up his stocking by his bedpost before going to bed. He knows because It's the date he had seen on Beomgyu's letter to Santa from when he found it, all those months ago. The very one that rests inside the second drawer of his desk, pressed between the pages of his journal. 

"It just feels special," he tells Soobin, because obviously he can't disclose his knowledge about the letter to anyone before Beomgyu. "I mean Christmas is kinda the early Valentine's Day."

"You're making things up now," Soobin looks up again to give him an unimpressed look. 

"And you don't have any sense of timing," Yeonjun scoffs, before he gets up to leave for his room because Soobin is too unenthusiastic for his vibes. "Christmas eve is literally the best day of the season for confession— you can confess that day and then go on your first date the very next day. This is why you are single."

"You are single too!" Soobin yells after him, defensively. "A month ago you were being a clown and a half— denying your feelings as if life depended on it and now that you have finally seen the light you are being _so desperate_. I should be paid for bearing with you—"

Yeonjun shuts the door to his room loudly in an attempt to let Soobin know that the conversation is over. He sighs and sits at his study.

The window before his desk offers him the same snow-piled landscape that he sees everywhere and he thinks about the mountain of time and missed opportunities that he is sitting on. He thinks about the curve of Beomgyu's cheeks against his finger and the way his eyelashes are pretty like a doll's and wonders how many more people are entranced by the same things that make him lose sleep. He thinks about how this is just Beomgyu's second year and there will be more people coming in next year, more people will inevitably be charmed by his deep voice, sweet smiles and charming presence. And he thinks about this Hyunjin person that Soobin had mentioned a few weeks ago.

Contrary to his nonchalance about the matter when he first heard it, the information about Beomgyu having a suitor in his proximity has been eating him up. He tried to gather more information about the guy and got to know he's in the music department and has elective composition class like Yeonjun and he also wears his hair long and pink like Yeonjun used to before he decided to cut it off and go highlighter yellow last month. Yeonjun would think it's another one of his wannabes (the price for being so cool, famous and sought after) but a little stalking him on Instagram tells Yeonjun this guy has always been that cool. A very insecure part of him goes _"maybe even cooler than you, if you don't judge yourself."_

But Beomgyu hasn't told him anything about the guy yet. He knows Beomgyu is not the type to stay shut about having a crush on someone and he would definitely share it with Yeonjun if he was interested in Hyunjin. Although it's true that recently it's been hard to even catch a text from the younger that isn't more than a few words about how tired he is from carol practice, he knows Beomgyu would never skip such details from him. So the fact that the younger has never mentioned that guy's name even in between his constant gushing about practice relieves Yeonjun to some extent. 

Only thing he worries about is _what if Hyunjin decides to confess on Christmas Eve while I am two two blocks away laughing at Hueningkai's jokes?_

Although, it's indeed undeniable that something has visibly changed between them recently. The course of their relationship has recently started ebbing into a completely new ground despite flowing the same way. It's evident in the way his ears heated up when he caught sight of Beomgyu in the hallways last week and the younger had looked at him with a longing so strong that it threw Yeonjun off track. It's the way the younger suddenly began to carry a shy smile, pink dusted cheeks around him and the lingering brush of his hand Yeonjun feels when they pass by each other these days. 

If he is not being completely delusional then it is definitely not just him who can feel the wind that's knocking Yeonjun out of breath everytime they are together. Watching Beomgyu flush at little things ignites the hope in him that he wouldn't dare to feed otherwise. 

But what if Beomgyu actually decides to give that guy a chance while Yeonjun is stuck stalling more than he already has? They have spent so many years together that they are almost at odds with time. Yeonjun is no where near sure if he _really_ has a chance but he knows that he would regret it if he misses it now that he has seen a hint of green amidst a cloud of heavy doubts and red signals that come with the thought of confessing to someone who you hold as close as a best friend. 

He pulls open his drawer and takes out his highlighters and the journal he has been meaning to use for a while now but never got to it. With heavy determination, his fingers grip the highlighter pen.

It's time to make a plan. 

  
  
  


★★★

  
  


Despite the elaborate show of stationary preparations, the 'plan' was not constructed at all. He groans at his own failure before slamming his notebook shut and diving head-first into his cold bed-sheets and letting himself be immersed in the nerve wrecking thoughts that come with the idea of confession. 

When he thinks about confessing, first he feels confident, because he thinks about the grandeur he can pull and he thinks about the kiss that Beomgyu pressed into his lips before Yeonjun could. He feels impatient too, for he wants to free himself of the growing weight against his chest, he is so, _so_ in love that he thinks he can't hold it in any longer, he wants to tell the world and he wants to say it to the boy who he loves. He is desperate to hold Beomgyu against his beating heart and tell him it's for him— all for him.

But then the heavy tide of doubt approaches him slowly, engulfs him whole and washes over him completely until he is turned inside out and left a throbbing shell of every single worry that makes him, against the shores.

He is terrified of losing Beomgyu in more ways than one, he is terrified of his own arms that he wants to wrap around him and he is terrified of the trust he has on what he thinks are 'signs' and he is terrified of the power Beomgyu has to break him without meaning to. Doubts cloud him like tangles of ivy, they creep around his rib-cage close to his heart and eat him until it has uncovered every little weakness around his heart. They echo in his ears: _Am I reading the signs right? Are my feelings enough to hold us together? Will I lose him because my feelings are heavier than his or will I lose him because they are not enough?_

Yeonjun suddenly doesn't want to confess at all. Suddenly the thought of keeping his feelings locked away in the depths of his chest seems good, if that's how he won't have to wallow in the fear of losing Beomgyu.

  
  


★★★

On the twenty first, Soobin and he decide to go home for Christmas, so they lock up their shared apartment and Yeonjun hops on the subway, ready to be carried to the place he misses more than he will admit.

It's when he is finally back home that he feels like the days have been graced with wings on their feet. They pass quicker when he is helping his mother with cleaning the house, going out to catch up with the school friends who he hasn't heard from in a while and laying in his own bed in his own room.

Then one morning he wakes up a little more colder than usual and looks out to see the snow in his front yard has thickened overnight. When he is brushing his teeth, he hears his mother scream his name from downstairs asking him to go out with a shovel and help his Dad. It doesn't hit him until he comes downstairs, one hand heavy with the cool metal and is greeted with the sweet smell of sugar and milk wafting from the kitchen along with his mother's happy voice humming the tune of Deck the Halls. 

It is Christmas Eve already. 

The smell calls Yeonjun to the kitchen and he immediately puts the shovel down and walks up to his mother and hugs her from behind, burying his face behind her neck. She smells of caramel, peaches and home. He is once again reminded about how much he misses her although he only lives a two hour drive away.

"Eomma," he says just for the comfort of being able to call her anytime.

His mother stops her work for a moment and pats his hand, face lighting with a smile at her son who is still so much like a little kid, only bigger in height. They stay like that for a while. Her moving around and working with her son hugging her from behind.

"You're going out with friends in the evening, right?" She asks, reaching for the piping bag. Yeonjun hums an affirmation and observes the way she starts filling the bag with icing for a cake that is too large for them to finish. It's for both his own family and Beomgyu's.

Unlike Beomgyu's family, Yeonjun and his parents have never celebrated Christmas beyond the festive part of it, which are, the aesthetics and the food. Beomgyu used to go to the Church with his family when he was younger until he stopped after he entered highschool in favour of having dinner at Yeonjun's place. That is why Yeonjun's mother started making an extra portion for Beomgyu (and some to pack home for his parents) on Christmas Eve every year. This year, however, because of Beomgyu's schedule, things are a little different even around Yeonjun's own household. His mother is not making any extra portions other than the cake, they won't even have their usual feast that Yeonjun looks forward to. Not that he minds because it won't be the same without the younger and he is going out with his friends too. Yeonjun is just surprised at the way Choi Beomgyu, that little boy, has the power to change the way his world moves, quite literally. 

"Your Appa and I are going out too since you said neither you nor Beomgyu are coming later, so make sure you take the keys," his mother reminds him again. Yeonjun already knew they were going out. It's a thought his Dad had produced when they were a little crestfallen that Beomgyu cannot attend dinner this year and Yeonjun, too, wants to go out this time around.

"You're going on a date with Appa?" Yeonjun fake-gasps as if it's something very unimaginable (It's not— Yeonjun knows his parents have been going on dates every now and then throughout the years.) 

"Dates aren't only for young people," His mother lets out a chuckle, "If they were, you would not be here mopping so hard over Beomgyu not being able to make it this year," she attacks right on the spot that's weak. Yeonjun, though, is too taken aback by the comment to feel insulted. He backs away from her in shock, mouth slightly parted and eyebrows scrunched.

"Eomma," He says, not knowing how else to express his disbelief. _Does she know about my feelings for him?_

"Oh I know everything, don't be so shocked," she says without even turning around and Yeonjun feels genuinely spooked. It's not like he did not suspect her of having mind-reading abilities but this is too on point. 

"How do you know? Even _I_ was unaware until recently…" Yeonjun gasps, "Eomma… with the way you can find things that have disappeared, your black magic abilities have always been evident. But now you can do psychometry too?"

"I don't need black magic for that, Yeonjun-ah, I just search for the things properly."

"So you are admitting you can use black magic if you need to?'

His mother laughs out loud at that.

"Yeonjun," she says, still calmly moving around the kitchen table as if she knew he was going to react in this exact manner and has had her answers prepared for ages. "I gave birth to you, of course I know. Plus, the way you look and behave around Beomgyu… I don't think anyone needs paranormal abilities to know that you would bring down the moon for that boy if he asks for it."

"Eomma," he says, this time softer, with contemplation, "have I been _that_ obvious?"

"Yeonjunie, do you know the kind of A grade whiny child you were? You always complained about everything like _no I don't want to stay home alone, why didn't you give me a cooler nickname when I was a kid, why did dad eat up all my candies,_ " his mother go on and Yeonjun almost lets out a whine of protest but holds himself back before he can help add to her list. 

"You are just insulting me now," he pouts instead, "Is this the reality that you've been hiding, Eomma? You think your son is a whiny loser?"

"I'm not calling you a whiny loser, my baby, you're adorable actually but a little annoying too" she chuckles when Yeonjun let's out a sound of protest. Then she turns around to face him, "I'm just saying: it's a fact that you are whiny— look at you, my, my," Yeonjun gets his cheeks pulled while he is looking down at his mother with his angry pout. 

"But then Beomgyu came along," she says, as she turns around and continues to cover her cake with icing, "I saw my whiny boy struggling to take care of him, giving him the last pieces of food that you like, dropping him home on winter evenings although you hate cold— and that's... how I guessed it at first."

Yeonjun's pout begins to melt as her words start settling on him. He begins to stare at her a little speechless. _I did that?_ He thinks and then he realises, yes, yes he did and still does. 

"That was only a guess, it was when you were in junior high and I thought perhaps you're going through a crush," she continues, "Later of course I got sure when on top of that, you literally gave up on hiding it. Always _Beomgyu this Beomgyu that_ , your eyes light up at the thought of him— got worse after you two started attending the same university. I think everyone should be able to tell it now just by looking at your face when you are around him."

"Oh," he replies, speechless as he is staring at the back of his mother's head. That's a lot to take in. He feels slightly choked with a sudden lump of feelings that have formed in his throat.

Then, His mother finishes with the icing and turns around again while wiping her hands on her apron. Her gentle smile pushes Yeonjun's heart with an unknown feeling and he suddenly wants to cry at the sheer comfort of it. 

It's like the lines seated at the corner of his Eomma's smile are easing the remaining doubts he had about his feelings for the younger, ones that have been lingering between the gaps of his fingers, refusing to wash away.

He shares a look with his mother, her eyes alone feel like invisible hands that are pushing him forward, telling him that it's okay, he can do this. Then she pats his head lovingly, reassuringly, and Yeonjun really feels like he can actually do this. He can spill his heart, he can trust his own feelings and he can trust his own hands with the one he loves. 

"Unfortunately my tendency of getting my head clouded with worries has been passed down to you," she says brushing her fingers through his hair, "So I'm not surprised you took so long to realise your heart. It's okay as long as you found your way."

Yeonjun wordlessly takes her hand and rests his cheek into her palm and it feels warm and comforting like his blankets, it feels like nothing in the world can wound him even if it's his own demons.

"My Yeonjunnie," she coos, "You don't have to always worry so much, sometimes you can let your instincts be the guide in the darkness that leads you to the right decision— trust yourself a little more, okay? You've got this."

For the umpteenth time, Yeonjun feels like his mom has read him again, like she knows exactly what he is struggling with and he finds comfort in that. A comfort in being understood without having to say anything much.

"Okay, Eomma," he says, "I will." 

★★★

When evening colours the snow dark blue, Yeonjun pockets the key to his front door and makes his way towards the main road. He makes a mental note of learning to drive on snow before next December so he doesn't have to walk around while it is so cold. For now, he intends on getting a bus ride to their university stop where the four of them— Soobin, Taehyun, Kai and he decided on meeting up.

They are planning on roaming the street markets just for the fun of it then having some chicken while complaining about school and then karaoke until they hear from Beomgyu. Beomgyu is the one who had proposed that they go out together despite his absence. Yeonjun thinks it's so that he can join them after he gets off— which is, by nine. But when he had asked Beomgyu if that's the reason the younger had sent him a dog sticker with the caption 'this idiot' written on it. 

The bus ride is a brief period of warmth until it is time to get off. Yeonjun ducks his head and braces himself before stepping out. The cold air ruffles his hair with wet hands and he takes a moment to zip up his padded jacket that he had unzipped while on the bus. 

When he lifts his head, he sees a bunch of familiar faces walking towards the bus stop. He recognises one of them as Beomgyu's choir teammates and stops in his tracks, his heart shaking at the thought of catching a sight of Beomgyu. 

His anticipation, however, is met with disappointment as more and more heads come to his sight but Beomgyu is nowhere to be seen. Yeonjun would have left because it's possible that the younger is late but then a worry rushes through him and he decides that he can try to ask someone about him just for the peace of his own mind. 

As if on cue he sees one of his friends among the crowd and walks up to her. 

"Soodam, hey," he says to catch her attention since she was busy reading something. She looks up from her sheet of paper and widens her eyes in shock for a moment before answering. 

"Yeonjun? What are you doing here?" She asks curiously, with a smile forming on her lips.

"Here to meet some friends," he answers, "Thought I could catch Beomgyu since all of you are here but I can't see him. Where is he?"

"Ah Beomgyu," she says, her voice suddenly sounding a little sad, "He called earlier to say he strained himself too much and lost his voice so he can't join us. Poor boy, he was so excited about this, I hope he feels better soon."

Yeonjun feels himself nod and thank her without paying much attention to it. Worry courses him as he walks away from her and then pulls out his phone to see if he has, by any chance, missed anything about this text from the younger. He even checks his calls, just in case, but he sees nothing— no sign that the younger tried to contact him. 

Beomgyu, that little shit, lost his voice and couldn't do the choir he worked so hard for but of course he didn't utter a single word about it to anyone but his team. Of course Yeonjun gets to know about it by chance. If his bus was a little late or if he left home earlier than his parents he would have never known about this. Beomgyu would have casually brought it up in a conversation later on as if it's something he doesn't care about at all. 

His fingers tighten around his phone and he starts to open his address book to call Beomgyu, equally worried and enraged at the younger for always doing this. For always choosing to suffer so quietly when Yeonjun is right here, one tap on his phone away. Heck, he could send a single fullstop to the elder and he would call him up and ask if anything is wrong. 

He is about to call him and yell into his ears about all these things when he recalls something Beomgyu had told him long ago. 

  
  


It was when Yeonjun had tried to be extra cool during his school's junior volleyball team selection and hurt his foot. The pain made him cry so hard that the nurse had to call his mother who had to rush from her work to take him to the hospital. Turned out he almost tore a ligament but thankfully it wasn't supposed to cause any permanent harm as long as he rested his foot for some time. 

Beomgyu used to go to a different middle school so he heard about it two days later after Yeonjun had texted him about why he couldn't make it to the volleyball team that he really wanted to join. That very afternoon, Beomgyu had showed up at his doorstep, still in his school uniform with Yeonjun's favourite snacks in his hand. 

Yeonjun was happy, so inexplicably happy to have his friend home. Not just _any_ friend but Beomgyu— who he wasn't supposed to meet before a few more weeks of school passed. 

But when he kept coming in after school every day Yeonjun started feeling a little concerned. Beomgyu used to go to a morning school so he got sleepy in the afternoon after his school got over. Yeonjun used to watch his eyelids drop even while they played Mario Kart together.

"Beomgyu-ah," he had said, plucking the game controller out of the younger's hand, "You don't have to come here everyday, I'm fine."

Immediately slipping out of his drowsiness, Beomgyu had given him a very dramatic eye roll.

"If you were fine then you wouldn't be stuck in your bed unable to move," he had said, fixing him with a tiny glare. 

"Yeah but I can stay alone," Yeonjun had reasoned, "The doctor said I can move around the house if I want to."

" _But you can't be sick and lonely!_ " Beomgyu had exclaimed as if it's the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, "Beomgyu will not let you be secretly sad in your lonely little house."

  
  


It's Christmas Eve and Beomgyu's parents have definitely left for their Church already since it is a little far from their house. On the bus earlier, Yeonjun had heart-reacted Beomgyu's brother's facebook post that had a picture of him with his friends at a restaurant at Itaewon. The younger's own plans and hardwork has all gone down the drain because of his throat and the rest of their gang including himself are supposed to be out together right now. 

Yeonjun wants to cry out of sheer frustration when he realises none of them would have even checked up on him for the rest of the night. 

"Choi Beomgyu, you idiot," Yeonjun mutters as he steps into the next bus that can take him to Beomgyu's stop. "When will your big words start being applicable for your own self?"

While on the bus, Yeonjun's fingers hover over Soobin's contact. For a moment he considers calling them all to hold a little Christmas Party at Beomgyu's place. Beomgyu likes people and his friends and it would be less lonely that way. But then a part of him, an irrationally selfish part of him wants Beomgyu to himself. He hasn't seen the boy properly in what feels like ages and the thought of some moments alone, with just the two of them makes him so greedy that he ends up texting Soobin a vague ' _something came up_ ' and he cannot make it. Soobin spams him with question marks and a bunch of keyboard smashes that he promptly ignores. 

The bus ride felt too long and then the way to Beomgyu's house felt longer. But when Yeonjun is finally at his door, he hesitates a little before ringing the doorbell. 

"Open up you idiot," he says into the camera, "I know you're home."

It takes a while before the doorknob makes some sign of moving, enough for his cold hands to get clammy inside the pockets of his jacket. When there is finally a crack on the door and a little head peeks out, Yeonjun wastes no time to quickly push it wide enough for him to enter before shutting it behind him. The warmth of finally being inside makes him feel slightly relieved until he fixes his gaze on the boy before him and his heart stutters. 

Beomgyu stands before him clutching onto his blanket that is draped over his body and looks up at Yeonjun guiltily, knowing that Yeonjun is not happy with what he did. 

"Yeonjun hyung," he tries to say but it comes out as a whisper because of the damned blockage in his throat and then he lowers his face further.

Yeonjun steps before Beomgyu and watches the way the younger is looking at the floor, disappointed at the way he can't even apologize, for being stupid and not telling him about this knowing Yeonjun would be so worried. But Beomgyu doesn't have to apologize to him, especially not for something like this. Yeonjun pulls up the slipping blanket and holds Beomgyu by his arms. He feels so heartbreakingly small, weighed down by sadness that Yeonjun can't stand it. 

"You don't have to talk," he says, softly, "Let's get inside. I'm making you hot chocolate."

Beomgyu silently nods, visibly relieved that Yeonjun doesn't say anything else. Despite his worries, Yeonjun finds it so cute. _Does he think I can ever get mad at him?_

Yeonjun knows his way around Beomgyu's kitchen better than he does his own thanks to their numerous late night shenanigans. While Yeonjun's mother never bought more snacks than necessary and always hid it well, Beomgyu had his elder brother so they had relatively more in their house. Beomgyu and his brother always knew where to find them so everytime Yeonjun came for a sleepover, they went on secret snack hunts in the darkness. He chuckles at the memory as he works on making the drink.

Beomgyu likes his hot chocolate sweet like his smile with whipped cream and marshmallow. It's something that is, Yeonjun thinks, is very Beomgyu. Yet, among the many other things, Yeonjun somehow picked that taste up after letting Beomgyu make him hot chocolate one too many times.

As he is adding the toppings to the drink, a smile plays on his lips. _Perhaps he too is very Beomgyu._

When he hands the drink to the younger he thinks Beomgyu's lips move in an inaudible "thanks" before he hides himself under his messy bangs. Yeonjun's heart hurts so much watching the younger sitting at home, obviously feeling down about not being able to attend the Choir he worked so hard for. That mixed with not being able to talk to anyone must be so hard for him and yet he is trying to put up a strong front. 

He sits beside Beomgyu on the couch and gently pats his head as the younger silently sips on the warm drink. The steam that rises from the cup slowly kisses his pale cheeks red and his eyelashes fall prettily against it. Yeonjun thinks it's unfair that someone should look this breathtaking all the damn time.

The gentle pats turn into fingers softly running through his hair. Beomgyu doesn't mind, he just leans into it as usual. It's one of his habits that devastates Yeonjun the most and he lets out a little smile at that. Beomgyu tries so hard to hide his need for comfort yet it slips out at times like this, when he is the least aware. Sometimes he wonders why he does it— why does Beomgyu try so hard for everything and everyone? 

_Maybe it's the way he loves_ , Yeonjun's mind answers him. No one ever teaches us to love— it's something that grows inside us, with us, slowly and uniquely. Some love with words— they hide confessions in the way they always have the best things to say to calm your fears, to reassure you, to make your heart flutter. Some love quietly with actions— with helping hands and worries. They let the little things they do translate their beating heart. Yeonjun thinks that's him. He has loved Beomgyu through his actions even before he knew he was in love. 

Then there are some who love in the way they would want it back. Yeonjun has always wondered if the way Beomgyu strives to be the perfect in his craft, perfect in any friendship, to put everything and everyone he holds dear before himself, is because he has always given the way he would want to receive. And if that is how it is then Yeonjun wants to do it— Yeonjun wants to be able to give him all the love in the very way he wants. 

"You should have told me that you're sick Beomie-ah," he says, making sure his voice is soft. 

"It's Christmas," Yeonjun hears the ghost of Beomgyu's voice reply. "You should be having fun."

_This boy_ , Yeonjun thinks, _does he know that I can never have fun when he is not there?_ Does he know that the only thing about winter that Yeonjun always looks forward to is his warm smiles and tinkling laughter that rings like bells and lifts up your spirits more than the festival can? 

"You should too. But here you are, sick and lonely and… and sad," Yeonjun says with desperation. He just wants to convince Beomgyu to _please_ spare some moments to think about himself too. 

"I'm not… sad," Beomgyu says into his cup, not being able to look up. Yeonjun knows it's because that's not true. He has seen this look one too many times and he can completely look through it. "I couldn't go to your house this year so I asked you guys to hang out while I go do my thing. But then I strained my voice too much last night and lost it so I couldn't even attend what I've been preparing for so hard. If I called you to nurse me, wouldn't that be another ruined purpose?"

Yeonjun heaves a sigh, finally understanding everything. Of course that is the reason why Beomgyu suddenly planned a Christmas outing for them despite knowing he can't participate. Observant as ever, he knows how much their time together every year means to him and he was worried about Yeonjun being lonely without him. As much as his heart swells at that, Yeonjun is once again reminded of why he takes it upon himself to take care of Beomgyu so much. That boy not only has no sense of self preservation but he also cares about everyone under the sun but himself. 

"Do your parents know about this at least?" Yeonjun asks, choosing to change the topic. Beomgyu nods into his cup. He feels a little relieved at that. At least he told his parents. 

"And what about dinner? Did you even have dinner?" 

"Mom made rice cake soup," He answers, "she threatened me to finish what she left so I did but there's more in the fridge. You can heat some up too, if you're hungry."

"That's good," Yeonjun says, glad that Mrs. Choi's threats still work well on this brat. His own have never been very effective. "I will have it later. My mom didn't let me leave without tasting her cake that she spent all day making," Yeonjun says, "I'll bring you some tomorrow. There's a lot."

"Okay."

"Then finish the drink and let's get you to bed," Yeonjun says firmly, leaving no room for the protest he knows is at the tip of Beomgyu's tongue. "It gets colder as night thickens so it's better for you to sleep early, lest you catch a cold on top of all this."

  
  
  
  


Beomgyu doesn't say anything and for once follows Yeonjun's words obediently. 

He stands by Beomgyu's bookshelf— the one that is filled with his Marvel comic books from when he was so obsessed with them— and watches Beomgyu shuffle back to his bedroom after brushing his teeth with the warm water he prepared (because he is so weary, what if the tiniest bit of cold is enough to make him feel worse tomorrow?). 

His worries settle somewhat only when Beomgyu is neatly tucked into bed, warm blankets pulled over his little body, safe and sound inside. 

He sighs for the umpteenth time in the same evening and sits down on the space beside his head. Beomgyu flutters his eyes at him and finally looks a little more alive than he did a while ago. 

“It's just a little sore throat, not even a cold, but you are going all Grandma Choi on me," Beomgyu speaks with a teasing smile. There he is again, speaking like a brat the moment he gets back the colours on his cheek. But Yeonjun can't be mad, not when Beomgyu is smiling for the first time since he has seen him today. It's his favourite look on him, Yeonjun thinks as he begins to lovingly card through his hair— this smile on his face. It can cure him of all things.

"Yeah and you would be crying in your corner right now if you didn't have this Grandma Choi to nurse you right now," Yeonjun jokes and then lightly flicks Beomgyu's forehead. The younger laughs a little at that, eyes glimmering again and finally, _finally_ Yeonjun feels a little at ease.

"But I know I have you," Beomgyu says after he is done laughing. "Thank you so much for being here, hyung." 

His face is suddenly so full of sincerity. It's as if he is trying to deliver something deeper than his gratitude and it makes Yeonjun's heart flip inside his chest. He can't help it when he lets his face reflect every last bit of how he is feeling, like a mirror, like Beomgyu's clear eyes.

"You'll always have me," he whispers. 

There is no here but them and yet it feels so loud as it bounces against the walls; the walls of the room that has been built with the memories of their time together, gently with their little hands that have grown so much bigger now. As he looks at Beomgyu and watches the stars in his eyes twinkle back at him, he hopes they can build more and more memories in here; cover the walls until every last corner and every brick can have a trace of them even when they no longer exist. 

  
  
  
  


Later, much later into the night after Yeonjun has already taken a trip to the kitchen to feed his aching stomach, he sits beside the sleeping boy again and looks at him for the last few moments before he has to go home. He kisses the crown of his head, softly so he doesn't disturb his tranquil breath. He's so beautiful, a soul anyone would be happy to love. 

  
  
  


Then, Yeonjun does something he did not plan on doing. In fact it's so cheesy even for him, he knows that he will later cringe at the sheer stupidity. 

Christmas Eve did not _at all_ go the way he thought it would and perhaps that is why he feels pushed to do something like this. Or maybe he does it because he needs to hear the words himself one more time. One more time, he wants to name the feeling that sits at the centre of his chest, right beside his beating heart, like a breath caught between his lungs that he can't exhale. He wants to bring out a fraction of it to his lips and savour the heaviness in front of him— this boy who makes him feel it. 

This is the boy he chose to love, he thinks, looking at his sleeping figure. This boy, who is happy and carefree like summer evenings and delicate and so pretty like buds at the end of winter is the one who can stir up a storm inside him with just a word. This is the boy with a soul so beautiful and a heart so pure that Yeonjun can't help but get lost in the depths of his feelings for him and yet, he won't have it any other way. 

In the silence of the night he breathes out his deepest yet loudest secret to etch itself against the same walls that have seen them become what they are now. 

"I love you, Beomgyu-ah," he whispers. It feels so good to say it that he says it again. "I love you so _so_ much."

And he is so glad that he does— he would do it over and over again.

* * *

"I can't believe you left me alone with them last night, you fucking betrayer," Soobin whines into Yeonjun's ear the first thing in the morning. 

"Hello Soobin, yes, Merry Christmas to you too, wishing you and your family stay happy and healthy," Yeonjun says, sarcasm still intact despite waking up seconds ago. The blinding daylight pours through the open curtains of his room and that mixed with Soobin's scream almost makes him wonder if he is back at the apartment he shares with that stupid brat.

"Shut up! Do you know how much I panicked? I have a crush on both of them, do you have any idea how stressed I got?" Soobin complains through the line and Yeonjun wants to throw away his phone. 

He squints at his surroundings trying to make sense of things, mind still heavy with the remains of his sleep holding on him. He really hates a Choi Soobin in his ears early in the morning when they are not even in the same place.

"Why are you doing this to me," he groans, "Did something happen or what?" 

"No, but something could have! You know how I get when I am drunk!"

"Yeah nothing happened so leave me alone, stupid shit," Yeonjun stretches out his body as he yawns loudly into the phone in hopes of getting back for the torture the younger just put his years through. 

"Merry Christmas, you ass," Soobin greets him finally. Yeonjun has run out of words against this blatant disrespect he has to face everyday. "Get ready fast. You know we have to go to Kai's place."

"Yeah I will, now get lost," he says before hanging up and tossing the phones somewhere on his bed.

Perhaps going to Kai's place is about to become some new Christmas tradition for their group. Last year Kai's mother was so elated that her extremely introverted son made not one but _four_ friends in the span of a year that she had invited all of them to their house. This year too, she insisted they come at least for brunch so that's where Yeonjun prepares to head to. 

After washing up and throwing on his outfit for the day, he realises he is actually a little late. Maybe he is glad that Soobin called him or he wouldn't make it in time at all. He barely has any time to wish his parents a Merry Christmas before he makes a run for the door. 

_What a lovely Christmas morning, getting yelled at and then running late. Merry Christmas to me indeed,_ he mentally scoffs. 

Once he is outside, he pulls up his phone to send a quick text to their group chat about being a little late. Then, his thumb hovers over Beomgyu's name on his contacts. He wants to call him to know if he is doing better but he is also scared of waking him up, since he should sleep as much as he can. So he decides to call in the afternoon and pockets up his phone. He looks up for a moment and sees the clear sky staring down at him and hopes it doesn't snow before he returns home. 

Although it hurts to breathe in the cold wind, he still does it out of habit, like he always does when he is walking down this path. His neighbourhood is one that is packed with houses on either side of the road. Most families have been here for generations. Yeonjun's family is one amongst the very few that are still considered new around here since his parents moved a little before he was born. Although it is mostly a quiet place, it feels even quieter right now since it's early on a holiday. The neighborhood is yet to wake up. But in the silence of the hour, he feels like he is being greeted by things that have watched him grow up— the walls where his friends and he used to draw their silly cartoons with coloured chalks, the pole that he had once hit his head on and spend three days with a big swell on his forehead, the little vending machine at one corner where he has spent so many coins on hot afternoons, buying cold soda.

Despite how his morning had started, Yeonjun feels himself to be in a good spirit today. Perhaps it's because he lets himself stir open a bit of his memories of this place after a long time. He's not been very attached to his neighbourhood but there are some strings that inevitably tie you to a place that you have returned to so many times and it feels nice. It's always nice to have a place to return to. 

Or it can also be the heavy admission that he unearthed from the depths of his chest in front of a sleeping Beomgyu yesterday that unknowingly eased him a little, made him a little more confident. It was so horribly cheesy that he can't stand to think about it, he's not living in a goddamn romcom movie and yet he makes that super ultra kdrama male lead move of confessing to his sleeping love— he shudders. It's not a memory he is going to look back to a lot. 

But for a moment, only now that he has thought about it again, he lets himself look back to it with a smile. There's a vulnerability in it, in admitting that you love someone. It's just a person who is the same skin, bone and marrow, nerves and heart like you but somehow has the power to move you like the moon moves the tide— it shouldn't be possible but it is. Then, there is this strength in being able to admit it out loud, to let others know, _yes, I am the powerful ocean that can roar at the skies but I am pliant under the moon because I can, because I want to and because I can't stop myself_. 

It's true that Yeonjun spent a long time learning to separate ripples from tides. Once he couldn't deny it any longer, he was scared of naming the force that causes him to crash against the shore against his will, scared of its power. Then, one day he willingly looks up at the moon, so beautiful and bright, and thinks _are you what makes me ache so sweetly?_ Now, he thanks it for letting him feel it, letting him rise and crash. He is thankful to Beomgyu for being his moon, he is so, so thankful that he can love. 

_Yes_ , he decides, he will let Beomgyu know about his feelings, when he is awake and looking at him with those eyes, no matter what— he will let him know that he is the moon, his driving force. He will trust their relationship enough for that. They are a _set_ and it's not that easy to separate people who are used to coming back together stronger after long periods of separation. Even If it is his own bleeding heart that dares to get in between, they will find a way like they always have. 

  
  
★★★  
  


His thoughts keep him company through his journey, and he basks in them until he is standing before Kai's door. He presses the doorbell twice and waits for being let in. 

A few seconds later, he hears the sound of the doorknob being turned and stands straighter. He had thought it would be Kai or his mother but instead it is his little sister who opens the door.

Bahiyyih looks at him silently as he gets rid of his shoes and then greets him once he is done. He greets back. Then she spends a whole second scrutinising him from head to toe before speaking again. 

"Ok at least you look good," she says and then throws a thumbs up, "Go up to the second room to the right on the first floor."

"Uh… thank you," he says with an awkward smile at the sudden compliment. She smiles before motioning him to take the stairs by them. Yeonjun nods.

_That was weird_ , he thinks once he makes his way up. 

He sends a text to their group chat that he is here because they were driving his notifications insane. Then he walks up to the door that Bahiyyih had mentioned and turns it open without much thought. Although he has only been in Kai's house once before, he remembers this room because this is where they played board games for the whole morning last year— it's Kai's bedroom. 

It feels a little foreign now, after a year, but he remembers the blue walls that greet him vaguely because that's what he had first noticed the last time he had come here. Kai's room is the same shade of blue as his own. 

But then amidst the unfamiliarity, he sees the person he is most familiar with, sitting on a stool by the window with his guitar on his lap. He looks up at the same time Yeonjun looks at him and then smiles a dimpled smile. 

Yeonjun halts in his step, eyes narrowed. He did not expect Beomgyu to be here today. 

"Beomgyu?" He says as he shuts the door behind him. The click echoes in his room for a second and then he continues. " I thought you would be too sick to come over." 

"I am not," he finally speaks with a sheepish smile and Yeonjun makes his way to the bed and sits there. "I mean my voice is still a little cracked…but I had something to do."

His voice still does sound a little heavy, but it is better than yesterday when he could barely make out what he was saying. Yeonjun feels a little relieved at that and then, asks his questions.

"Something to do?" He repeats, giving Beomgyu a confused look, "What is it? Also where is everyone else?"

Yeonjun thought they would all be in here because they were so impatient about him joining them. But it's just him and Beomgyu here and it's very strange. 

"They went out because I asked them to," Beomgyu replies. 

"You did?" Yeonjun finds this growingly peculiar, _what is going on?_ "Why? Did something happen?"

Then he looks at Yeonjun with a force that grips him in place. There is a doubt hidden in the way he hesitates to answer and his chest rises to take in a breath instead. 

"No hyung," he Beomgyu replies, " I…I can't serenade you with them around, can I?"

Yeonjun blinks. Once, twice, then he gapes a little. The whole room feels stuffed with a tension that hangs loud in the air, anticipation that courses through Yeonjun's own veins as he processes what Beomgyu just said to him. He thinks back to what Bahiyyih had said moments— _"At least you look good"_ and now he wonders: _look good for what?_

"You what?" He voices, almost involuntarily. And then both his questions are answered by the boy before him.

"I going to serenade you," Beomgyu says in the same way he had asked him to the movies that day, on the pavement outside his dorms, he says it in the same way he had said he wanted to pay for him for a change that day at the cafe, and it's the same way he had whispered _let me put this on you_ before making him wear the bracelet that is still around Yeonjun's wrist. 

Suddenly everything makes sense. 

But he is Choi Yeonjun, annoyingly confident about everything else but master level doubter when feelings. He needs to have things spelt out to him— laid down in front of him open and wide, looking at him in the face, their texture brushing between his fingers, before he can say _I_ _understand_.

"You want to _serenade_ me?" He asks with his heart shaking even at the very shape of the words around his lips, "like as a joke or-?"

"No- _god, hyung_ ," Beomgyu groans, "as it is I'm struggling with my voice, then this whole thing sounds stupid and now you are making me _more_ nervous. Why would you think I'm joking about this?"

Yeonjun blinks. He wants to say it's because he has spent too long dreaming a moment like this so he can't make out if this is for real, if he is reading the implications of what Beomgyu just said in the right way. With the knowledge from watching too many American romcom movies (that Soobin calls _painfully heterosexual_ ) he has learnt serenading is usually seen as something romantic— it's when one between the main couple plays the other a song under the moonlight while professing their love. That's such a big hope to have, Yeonjun is too scared to think _that_ is what is about to happen to him. 

"I don't know," he replies then he pauses, "I am not sure if this is... what I am thinking it might be." He admits. Beomgyu's eyes soften back to their doe shape, the lines on his forehead smoothen as he understands. 

"I'm about to serenade you hyung," he says more passionately, more confidently, "In the way they do in dramas, in the way they do in movies but like the gay version."

"Okay," Yeonjun nods not knowing what else to do, to say.

"This is getting stupid. I've said the word 'serenade' too many times," he groans into his hand. Then he looks up and into Yeonjun's eyes. "Just listen to the song I play," he says, "listen carefully hyung."

"Okay," Yeonjun says again.

With a deep breath, Beomgyu begins. The gentle tune of the chords fill the room and inch closer and closer to Yeonjun until it starts to wrap a hand around his insides and spreads over the ache in his chest. He watches the way Beomgyu plucks the string, eyes focusing on his fingers. He pours himself in and the melody translates all the words that hang between them now. Unsaid, waiting to be said, waiting to be heard. 

Yeonjun tries his best to hear it. The melody caresses him and he closes his eyes to understand, to let himself feel, _to know_. The tune feels familiar to him, he realises as the pre-chorus hits, he has heard this song before, maybe he has listened to it on repeat long, long ago and then forgotten about it. _Listen carefully hyung_ — he can hear Beomgyu's request again and he does. He searches his mind to see where in the many racks of his head he has stored the memory of such a tune and what it can possibly mean for him and for them. 

He recalls the colours first— green and yellow and blue— hues of torn yellow falling on his face through a mass of green above his head. He pulls back a faraway memory of lying down on the ground, head staring up at the blue sky and the tops of green trees with the same tune, the same strings being played somewhere beside him. Then, slowly, a very vague and blurry memory, starts to unearth itself before his closed eyes, like a polaroid that lost its face amidst many, many new ones.

It was some summer evening, some years ago. Perhaps when Beomgyu was in his last year of junior high school. Earlier that year, he had started to play the guitar and had bragged to Yeonjun about how he is doing it completely by himself, from YouTube videos alone. Yeonjun had asked him to prove how well he is learning and play a song when they meet again. He thinks they were in the park that's beside Beomgyu's house— they went there many times so perhaps it was there. These thoughts are mostly blurred. 

But then amidst all the blurs, there are some things he remembers vividly. He remembers Beomgyu's fingers strumming the guitar that was too big for his small body but still balanced so effortlessly, he remembers the blue sky above him and he remembers the tune— this very tune that Beomgyu is playing now. 

Although back then it was slightly different, he thinks, the younger was not as good at playing it as he is now and perhaps it was a shorter, simpler version that he had played. It was a little messy but Yeonjun liked it very much, that kind of slow tunes have always been his type. When Beomgyu had finished the last note and looked at him with doubtful eyes, he had given him a smile and said it was the best thing someone ever played him. 

Then they searched it up and listened to the song, over and over again on Yeonjun's phone. It was a cheesy song, it turned out, and it also had a very cheesy name but then again, it was Taylor Swift. Yeonjun had teased Beomgyu about being a hopeless romantic once he had taken a look at the lyrics.

"I did not know our little Beomie likes it cheesy," he had said in a teasing tone. "Bet you dream of getting proposed to with a song like this."

"Just because you are saying this, I will learn this song well and play it to the person I fall in love with," Beomgyu had snickered. "You will watch the power of Taylor Swift."

"Taylor Swift is already powerful, she's a queen," he had said after laughing out loud for a minute, "Now I'm just concerned about the person who has to be proposed to with a song like this. Listen to hyung and don't do it." He teases just because it's fun to watch Beomgyu get worked up.

"And when _you_ get proposed to with this very song, hyung," Beomgyu had said with a challenging look in his eyes, "Then you will know, so, remember the name."

  
  
  


He does remember.

"Everything has Changed," he whispers as soon as Beomgyu finishes. He looks up from his guitar and their eyes lock again. The last note still echoes in between them and Yeonjun agrees. _Everything has changed_. 

First it was quiet; light steps on the back home after hanging out the whole day with a heart full of laughter, when he had first kissed Beomgyu on the forehead impulsively and whispered _good night Beomie-ah_. Then it condensed into a seed planted deep, deep inside his heart, waiting for him to feel it grow every time Beomgyu stirred in his arms at night during sleepovers. It slowly struck roots when he saw Beomgyu peeking into the dance practice room— when his limbs were aching— looking like a breath of fresh air reminding him to rest up. It grew until it forced Yeonjun to look at Beomgyu's starry eyes and cherry lips, and go _this is him! The one you love, you fool!_

"You are the one I wanted to sing this to hyung," Beomgyu says, finally breaking the heavy silence. He pauses a bit to keep the guitar by the wall and puts his hands on his lap before continuing. "Back then, and even now. I haven't been able to say anything for so long because I was scared that the times when I thought you might feel the same way are all in my head. I thought maybe I've been doing it the wrong way, maybe I should try to make some actual moves and see. But it's so hard to make moves on someone who you've known for so long, right? It's practically impossible to propose to do something that we haven't already done so I tried to be more honest with my feelings instead— I let myself show you that I feel shy, let you see my nervousness, I tried my best to show you, point to you what you do to me, where you make me feel every time we are together. But then I kept wondering if you are noticing it— if you are noticing me pulling myself apart for you so I got impatient and went _fuck it I'm confessing_ and that's why—" Beomgyu chokes a little on his words, his throat still heavy and slightly sore, it's probably hard for him to speak so much but he does, he won't stop unless he has said it all.

"I love you hyung, I've loved you for so long that it's grown these branches in me where it aches when I think about you leaving me. And I love you so much that I cannot hold it in anymore."

Yeonjun's feet work on their own when he gets up from where he was sitting, even before Beomgyu can finish talking. With heavy steps, they carry him there, where he sits like he is from every dream Yeonjun has been scared of dreaming lest his hopes get too high. It is true that Love is like flying, like you are at the top of the world— but it can also fool you into thinking you can touch the sun and make you feel the reality of cold hard ground faster than the blink of an eye. That's why it's called _falling in love._

But this is Beomgyu, his moon, sitting before him looking so small, so vulnerable on having to open himself up and having to show the part of him that he has kept pressed between pages continuously for Yeonjun to see him. Yeonjun thinks he has kept the poor boy waiting for too long already but he is so glad that it hasn't been too late.

He kneels down so he is in Beomgyu's level and cups his face— so small and round— with both his hands. He speaks when Beomgyu looks up, into his eyes again. 

"I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting like this," Yeonjun says, first, "sorry that hyung is a fool who did not realise the depth of his feelings sooner. You did so well Beomie, thank you so, so much because without you trying I would have never realised how much I feel for you until too late."

He takes in a deep breath before saying it again, the words he said last night but this time with his sun, his moon and all his stars right in his hand, looking up at him with almost-teary eyes. Yeonjun knows his own eyes are watery too— both of them have always been crybabies. 

"I love you," he breathes out, soft like the snow that touched his face when Beomgyu was standing nervously before him on the day of first snow, like the warm evening sunlight when they were laughing in the art room, like the kiss they shared under the mistletoe. "I love you so much too, do you know? I have spent so long just wondering what love is but I didn't realise that it's what I feel everytime I look at you and it's the way your warm presence is the only reason why I've always looked forward to every season— love is _you_ and I love you."

It's so cheesy, so horribly cheesy and yet Yeonjun likes it, he loves it. Because then, Beomgyu jumps into him, a welcoming weight upon his chest. He almost falls back at the suddenness but then balances both of their weights, one hand around Beomgyu's waist another behind his head that's hidden under his chin, while being trapped by Beomgyu's arms around his torso. 

"So this is real?" He feels Beomgyu say over his racing heart, "You really like me? You won't just suddenly disappear like a dream?" 

He sounds so much like the little Beomgyu who he had first befriended. 

_"Will you? Really hyung? You won't leave like them?"_

He pulls the boy away from his chest to look at him, his pretty flushed face, cute little nose, mesmerising eyes— all the parts of Beomgyu that he can love without having to hold back. He bends to place a kiss on his cheek, one on the spot where he has the most adorable little dimple, then another on the bridge of his nose, one on his forehead, then he gathers up his face between his hands again and promises, " _no_ , no I won't."

"Even if I ask you to date me?" 

Yeonjun giggles, heart so full, so warm. 

"Even if you ask me to date you." 

"Even if I ask you to kiss me right now?" He asks, shamelessly, now that he can't get any redder than he already is. 

"The others might come in," Yeonjun reminds him,"I can't kiss you the way I want to, knowing those idiots can walk in anytime."

"Oh them," Beomgyu says almost as if he had forgotten they exist at all, "They aren't here. Kai's grandmother got sick so his parents had to visit her last night and asked him to let us know that brunch is cancelled. He knew I wanted to confess today so he said I can use his room. No one is home as far as I know. Bahiyyih told me she will be going to her friend's house after you come in."

"Oh," Yeonjun says. Shocked that this whole thing was actually well planned. 

"So can we kiss now?" Beomgyu impatiently tries to get on his tiptoes to kiss Yeonjun. The elder laughs a little and pushes him back down on his feet before he can do that. 

"Be a little patient," he says, as if he himself isn't trying his hardest not to lose it right now. But he wants it to be something they can remember. Unlike their first kiss, he wants this one to be something that can convey his feelings more than his words have been able to— because he feels so much for this boy in his arms that words can never be enough to express himself. 

He presses forward slowly and watches the impatience on Beomgyu's face fade into an anticipation that he has seen before. He brushes his thumb against his waiting lower lip that quivers under his touch. 

"You've got a really pretty mouth," he whispers and then leans down completely to take over it and kisses him the way he has been aching to ever since he got a taste of his lips. He kisses with the desire that he has been trying to keep locked, passionately pouring in every feeling he hasn't been able to put into words. And _oh, his mouth is sweet_ , so sweet that he can get lost in the high, he thinks, as he pulls playfully on his bottom lip. Beomgyu lets out a cute noise and he cluckles into the younger's mouth because he is _so adorable_. 

They kiss until they taste stars, until they are breathless and Beomgyu breaks away first to fall into his arms again. Yeonjun is here to hold him again and he promises he will always be here, just like this, to hold him for as long as they are together because they were made to hold each other. 

"Fuck," Beomgyu whispers into his chest as he suddenly realises something.

"What happened now?" Yeonjun chuckles. "Liked it that much?" 

"Yeah," he breathes, "But I also just realised how much I love it here," He rubs his face against Yeonjun's chest, "We've hugged so many times but I think I love today's hug the best."

Yeonjun feels his ears heat up at the honesty and wonders if this is what he signed up for. If Beomgyu is going to say more such things from now on and be on a mission to flip his heart every chance he gets. 

"Me too," he says and then kisses the top of his head, "I love it here too."

  
  
★★★

They text the group chat and leave Kai's place shortly to go to Beomgyu's place instead because as much gross as they plan on being from now on, they can't just be a mushy couple alone in someone else's house like that. While they walk together by the sidewalk, hands intertwined, Yeonjun can't keep the smile off his face. Neither can Beomgyu.

It has been a long year, but now they are here at the end, together and smiling at each other with a love that is loud to the rest of the world yet heavy with a secret that's just between the two of them.

There were worries and doubts and they still are here, inside him, waiting for the right moment to make themselves known. They will exist for as long as he is going to stay alive and human. At the end of the day he learnt, he _grew_ despite them. He had taken the one hard step closer to what his heart yearned for, despite them. He was there when Beomgyu closed the last bit of the gap, despite them. 

_That is all that matters_ , he thinks, once they reach Beomgyu's place and the younger pulls him into his room. by his hand and so sweetly asks him to kiss him again. He does, because who is he to deny him? 

Midway through his guilt kicks in at a sudden memory. He breaks away to shamefully admit that he found eight-year-old Beomgyu's letter and kept it with him like a creep. Beomgyu laughs at it hard and Yeonjun lets himself heave a sigh of relief. That's another worry that Beomgyu pulls away just like that, with his little hands, gentle words and ringing laughter. 

"I don't even remember writing something like that," he says, holding Yeonjun's worried face between his hands, "It sounds stupid now but I guess if it helped you in any way then it doesn't matter. Maybe Santa, that scammer, really did ask you to love me back after all these years and you did. Nevertheless, thank you for saying this to me— for not being scared of admitting something again. I think that is all that matters."

_Yeah_ , he thinks again, returning Beomgyu's smile with a lighter heart _, maybe that is all that matters._

**Author's Note:**

> Alt title: the 5(ish) times Yeonjun discovers love in his best friend and the 1 time he gets to finally have him in his arms in the gay way.  
> Yeonjun has actually annoyed me a lot, if you can't tell already TAT.  
> Thanks to anyone who has read, so far! ^^


End file.
